Category Politics | Hannah Ihms

March 3, 2015 by Hannah

Then It Was Nazism; Now It Is Islam

If there was ever a time that we as Christians needed to stand with Jews and with the Jewish state of Israel, it is now. When Haman was planning genocide in Babylon, Mordecai told Esther that God had placed her in her position of authority “for such a time as this.”

What is your position of authority? Where has God placed you so that your words and your life carry influence? Use it for God’s glory and stand with Israel! Benjamin Netanyahu will be addressing a joint session of Congress today at 11AM EST. If there is any conceivable way you can tune in, I urge you to!

During WWII, Winston Churchill addressed Congress; the leader of one free nation appealed directly to the people of another free nation. Then, as now, one of our strongest allies was being threatened by a totalitarian force. Then it was Nazism; now it is Islam. Let’s stand with Israel and stand with Benjamin Netanyahu!

Watch the broadcast live

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February 19, 2015 by Hannah

Martha for Mayor!

From the very first time I met Martha Lake, I was struck by her upbeat, optimistic attitude. I was only a kid and I had no idea how much she was doing here in Kokomo. All I knew was that she was an incredibly kind person with a sunny personality.

Today as we talked, I was thankful that a woman who values her duty to God and country, has taken fiscal accountability seriously, and has actively supported our community would take the plunge and run for Mayor of Kokomo. Martha knows Kokomo extremely well, having spent all but 9 months of her life here. She’s served as Howard County Auditor for 11 years and has enthusiastically supported the local prolife cause.

She is an incredible role model and a fantastic choice for Kokomo’s next mayor!

To learn more about Martha, check out the Tribune’s coverage of her campaign announcement as well as her announcement itself:

Good evening: I am Martha Lake and I am declaring my candidacy for Mayor of Our City of Firsts, Kokomo, Indiana. I believe that a great city is measured by the quality of the lives of the people who live in it.

Now is the time for proven leadership to take on the City’s toughest challenges and win! That’s what I will do if elected your mayor.

I grew up in Alto, Indiana, which in the last few years has been made a part of the City of Kokomo thru annexation. I have lived all but the first nine months of my life, right here in Howard County. I have lived on the southwest side of downtown Kokomo since 1976. I love this town and every neighborhood in it.

Here I learned that what matters is not your name, or how much money you have, but what you get done and, especially, how you do it. It’s where I have learned that you get more done when you work with people rather than against them.
But… it is where I also learned that you must be prepared to take on tough fights, and make a real difference in people’s lives, when it matters most.

My dad worked at Continental Steel for 35 years. I learned something very fundamental from my dad… hard work matters, people matter. I am proud of my siblings and I honor my parents and all they taught me. My children live in this town as well as my grandchildren. I have a vested interest in making sure we not only survive, but we thrive! Most of you have that same vested interest!

Five times, the people of this city and county have by their votes entrusted me with two of the most important jobs of this community. Currently, I am serving my third term and starting my eleventh year as County Auditor. Auditor comes with the title and responsibility of the Chief Financial Officer of Howard County. I take this position very seriously, as I should! Over the years we have maintained perfect SBOA audits and made timely property tax distribution to all Howard County taxing entities.

I have also served eight years as County Treasurer, billing and collecting property taxes and working with our tax payers. I have many contacts statewide who are always available to help us with local issues. They are just a phone call or email away. In 2011 I was also chosen by my County Treasurer peers across the state to be County Treasurer of the Year. Both positions have given me unique preparation for the position I seek today.

As both Auditor and Treasurer, my proudest accomplishment has been to stand up for Kokomo property owners and try to stop the city from raising property taxes. I was also instrumental as treasurer in giving money back to our taxpayers almost $900,000 when we received an unanticipated refund, due to a state error on our local income tax distributions.

My service as both Auditor and Treasurer has taken on powerful interest on behalf of all of the people of Kokomo. I am proud of my record….but I can’t be finished yet! As mayor I would work harder than ever in an exciting new position which offers new opportunities to bring new ideas and positive changes to this community.

Also, as mayor, my highest priority is the safety of our people. This starts with establishing respect and appreciation for our police officers, fire fighters and all public safety personnel. It means that all necessary and involved parties are brought to the table when community decisions are being made. It also means making sure that our newly annexed areas are protected as was promised… And… as is required by law. Having sufficient emergency manpower and equipment is essential.

Emergency vehicles must be easily available, well maintained and dependable. We are blessed with professional, dedicated law enforcement officers, fire fighters, dispatchers and EMA volunteers. These people need to receive the right tools, trustworthy support, and positive reinforcement and recognition to help them do their jobs effectively and efficiently. They do not take their responsibilities lightly and neither should we. Every day, their lives are at stake and so are the lives of our loved ones and even our own lives as well.

Next, we need to provide a secure and varied foundation for our young people. We need to help them flourish as they grow up and provide a stable base so that they have the option to continue to live, work and play right here when they become adults. We have the best youth in the state of Indiana. These students are prize winners and scholars. They are smart, talented, hardworking and motivated. We need to offer them the opportunities and challenges that they are moving elsewhere to find. We have great educational facilities. We need great jobs. We need to grow our population from within, not artificially by involuntary annexation of outer county limits. We need to be so attractive to those living outside our community that they want to come here to live.

Many new small businesses have been started here and we are proud and appreciative. However, we need to go after larger businesses too. Those which involve and/or explore technology, research and development, production, manufacturing, service and professional jobs and other new solid entrepreneur opportunities. We have empty buildings that need to be filled and others that need quality renovations. Surely with the right initiatives we can resurrect and bring back to life these needy areas of our City. And, fill them with permanent jobs or make them permanent homes for our people.

We have beautiful trails and we are proud of the quality of life they bring us. However, what is missing is better sidewalks around our schools for our children to walk on. We need better sidewalks in our residential areas as well. Badly cracked, broken sidewalks are dangerous and can easily be the cause of falls and serious accidents. The same is true of our City streets.

We have the hardest working, most dedicated citizens that a community could ever be blessed with. Look at what has happened in Kokomo in the last five years. The mountain top that we are on today, compared to the valley that were headed for five years ago is as different as night and day. Things did not change because of one person or one idea. Our situation has drastically changed from a dark place to a “light on a hill” due to the united efforts and unfailing spirit of all of us living and working in our community. All who have refused to allow Kokomo to be anything other than the very best it can be! I am so proud to be a part of this community and so proud of what this community stands for and has accomplished.

We stand for God and family; we stand for friends and co-workers; we stand for transparency, ethics and morals, integrity and dignity. We take care of each other. We are supernaturally bound together through both the easy and the difficult. Our community is strong, but only because our commitment to each other, to our health, our success and our prosperity is strong. We are united and committed to provide a stable and secure present and future for all who live and work here.
I am determined and dedicated to work hard to keep us on track to grow and thrive financially. I am also determined to work well with all taxing entities in Howard County, our leaders at the state level, our workers in business, our professionals and all taxpayers and citizens. City government is not about separation; City government is about unity, mutual cooperation, respect and appreciation. When working together, all things are possible. So… let us enthusiastically move forward together.

Thank you.

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February 19, 2015 by Hannah

Blast from the Past

I just found some articles I’d submitted to The Orange and Blue Observer on March 1, 2010. That’s been a while ago! To my knowledge, they were never published, so you’re the first to see them. They certainly show what was happening on the University of Illinois campus then!

Stop Killing the Dream

November 3, 2014 by Hannah

Beat the Clock on Election Day 2014

November 4, 2014 is Election Day. Here’s four ways you can be ready!

1. Check your voter registration status

Not sure if you’re registered to vote? Check your voter registration status online.

2. Find your polling place

The polls may be open from 6AM to 6PM, but no one wants to wander around looking for their polling place! To double-check that you’re headed to the right place, look it up online.

3. See who will be on your ballot

To see exactly which candidates are running in your precinct, look it up online.

4. See where the candidates stand

There’s a wide range of ways to research your candidates, but a nonpartisan voter’s guide is a great place to start. For example, Advance America asked each candidate running for statewide office about their position on eight key issues and summarized their results in a handy guide. To see the results from your district, visit this page.

That’s all, folks! If you have a question I didn’t cover here, post a comment or check out the full list of services offered by the Indiana Election Division!

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February 10, 2014 by Hannah

A World Split Apart

Having survived the Soviet gulag, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn knew what it was to be a prisoner. His seminal work The Gulag Archipelago chronicles the development of the gulag and the men, women, and children killed or maimed there. When his homeland exiled him, he found the West imprisoned in a different kind of cage–a gilded one. This bondage was the theme of the commencement speech he delivered at Harvard University on June 8, 1978. After reading the following quote I knew I had to post the entire speech:

224 Years of Thanks

This Thankgiving, I’m thanking God for about seven million things. At the top of the list are my Lord, family, friends, job, and country.

It’s so easy to rush through life and take all these blessings for granted. Then I get a wakeup call.

A Tale of Two States

We’re not in Illinois anymore, Toto. And that’s a good thing. In Illinois, governors go the Big House. In Indiana, they become college presidents.

Since moving from Illinois to Indiana, I’ve noticed other stark differences between the two states. Like money, and vision. When I was at the University of Illinois, our college president (who has since left) lectured us on “shared sacrifice.” In the Q&A afterward, a student brought up the fact that he made more than the President of the United States and asked how he planned to share in our sacrifice. A redder face I never saw, but it was anger, not embarrassment, that flooded his answer. Let’s just say “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” remained a hypothetical.

At another townhall meeting, college administrators outlined a gloom-and-doom picture of the university’s future, since the state’s funding was less than forthcoming. Trying to be helpful, I gave some ideas of how to encourage entrepreneurship in the faculty. I thought requiring faculty to start a company or write a book with mass appeal as a condition of tenure would be a good start, since the professor and the university could broker a partnership with mutual benefit. My enthusiasm was met by blank stares and a few words about not wanting to run the university like a business.

The U of I may not have been ready for a new approach to higher education, but Purdue University is. Here’s an invitation President Mitch Daniels sent just this week (emphasis added):

President Mitch Daniels invites all faculty, staff and students to join him for a President’s Forum at 8 a.m. April 25 in the East and West Faculty Lounges, Purdue Memorial Union.
The forum will feature remarks and a panel discussion about innovation and commercialization and steps Purdue is taking to encourage entrepreneurism among faculty, staff and students.
The forum will be webcast via Windows Media Live Stream at mms://video1.itap.purdue.edu/PresidentsForum
It will be archived on the President’s Website after the event at mms://video1.itap.purdue.edu/bns/General/Forum130425.wmv

in Education / Politics 1 comments

February 5, 2013 by Hannah

The Evolution of the Math Problem

I found this among my Grandfather’s papers on a dot-matrix-printed sheet of paper. I’m guessing it gave him quite a chuckle, which is why he kept it. The author is unknown.

Take a simple math problem, subject it to thirty years of new, improved teaching methods, and deduce the formula to yield our average yearly drop in SAT scores.

In 1960
“A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?”

In 1970 (Traditional Math)
“A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price; in other words, $80. What is his profit?”

In 1970 (New Math)
“A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is worth $1. Make one hundred dots representing the elements of the set M. The set C of costs of production contains 20 fewer points than the set M. Represent the set C as a subset of M, and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?”

In 1980
“A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.”

In 1990
“By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making money? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?”

in Education / History / Politics / Sociology 0 comments

December 31, 2012 by Hannah

If I Were the Devil

Growing up, there was one radio voice I loved more than any other: Paul Harvey’s. He covered funny stories in that inimitable voice of his, and I always tried to anticipate “The Rest of the Story.”

I’d never thought about his beliefs. That is, until my aunt forwarded me a clip called “If I Were the Devil.”

At first I was incredulous. Would Paul Harvey, the man I always thought of as a gentle radio voice, really do something like this? It turns out he did. Snopes.com documents that the first version appeared in his newspaper column in 1964, and he released various versions throughout the years. After watching it, it started making more sense to me. Here was a man who’d maintained a firm moral backbone throughout his years in radio. But in that time, he’d seen plenty of people succumb to the best-advertised ideas, the kinds of ideas that need repetition in order to become believable.

His words ring as true now as they did when he first shared them:

If I were the prince of darkness, I would want to engulf the whole world in darkness.

I’d have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree–thee.

So, I would set about however necessary to take over the United States.

I’d subvert the churches first, and I would begin with a campaign of whispers.

With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.”

To the young, I would whisper that the Bible is a myth. I would convince the children that man created God instead of the other way around. I’d confide that what’s bad is good and what’s good is square.

And the old, I would teach to pray after me, “Our Father, which are in Washington …”

Then, I’d get organized, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting.

I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the devil, I’d soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves and nations at war with themselves until each, in its turn, was consumed.

And with promises of higher ratings, I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.

If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellect but neglect to discipline emotions. I’d tell teachers to let those students run wild. And before you knew it, you’d have drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

Within a decade, I’d have prisons overflowing and judges promoting pornography. Soon, I would evict God from the courthouse and the schoolhouse and them from the houses of Congress.

In his own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science. I’d lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money.

If I were the devil, I’d take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I killed the incentive of the ambitious.

What’ll you bet I couldn’t get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich?

I’d convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun and that what you see on television is the way to be.

And thus, I could undress you in public and lure you into bed with diseases for which there are no cures.

In other words, if I were the devil, I’d just keep right on doing what he’s doing.

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December 10, 2012 by Hannah

An Appeal to Joe Donnelly

[This open letter to Senator-elect Joe Donnelly originally appeared in part in the Kokomo Perspective on December 9, 2012 and in full in the Kokomo Herald on December 10, 2012.]

Dear Editor,

Hobby Lobby is facing large fines by the Federal Government beginning in January because they refuse to provide coverage for abortifacients to its 13,500 employees. We appeal to Senator-elect Joe Donnelly to make good on his commitment as a pro-life Democrat. We hope that Senator elect Joe Donnelly was unaware of the consequences of his support for the law he voted for called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and that he will now push for protection for the consciences of fellow Hoosiers. We know it may be difficult to stand alone if necessary, but we pray that Mr. Donnelly will be emboldened to do so.

The current smokescreen – that Federal tax dollars will not pay for abortion drugs – is just that, a smokescreen. The government requiring businesses to pay for abortion drugs is certainly no better. Such political ploys may divert criticism, but they suggest a deceptive and dishonest manner of governing. We urge Mr. Donnelly to use the weight of his influence to protect those humans conceived but not yet born. Our religious convictions AND our scientific understanding of the human body are why we do not consider these drugs to be conducive to healthy living.

One of our former Presidents wrote, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical” and “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Hopeful and sincere,

David, Ann and Hannah Ihms

Pastor Steve and Evelyn Sherwood

Pastor Jeff, Tammy and Jayme Hierholzer

Rob and Robin Brookshire

Leelia Cornell

Ed and Nilda Penaflor

Pastor Bill Martin

Troy and Brenda Pullen

Cindy Benedum

Jacob and Betty Deurloo

Clovis Smith

Michael G. Kranner

Joe and Andrea Russeau

Mickey Jackson

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Heck

Faith Rose-Scales

Don and Linda Burris

Jeff Schwartz

Gail Ambrose

Geri and Jesse Brewster

Pastor Ed and Marylu Vasicek

Terry and Sharon Watson

Mark Lantz

Karen and Loren Hylton

Barney and Mariann Shayne

Larry and Felicia King

“These abortion-causing drugs go against our faith, and our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful,” David Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO, said in September. “…We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”

http://www.obamacarewatch.org/primer/employer-mandate

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August 11, 2012 by Hannah

Illinois Women Rally for Romney August 21st

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

It’s official. Women looking for a sugar daddy are more likely to vote for Barack Obama. This news comes from the biggest sugar daddy dating website of them all. But let me be clear. Not all of us take the fictional “Julia” or the all-too-real Sandra Fluke as role models. Our goal is to work honest jobs in our homes and offices, not to be crowned welfare queens.

If you’d like to meet others from across Illinois who are committed to real women’s rights, come by the “Girls Night Out to Get Romney In” rally on Tuesday, August 21st. Talk show host Amy Jacobson will lead the event, and there’ll be great food, special guests, and incredible music. It’s taking place at Café la Cave in Des Plaines, and there’s a $15 admission fee at the door. The doors open at 6PM, and the rally begins at 7PM.

To RSVP, send an email to kickoffrally@gmail.com with a subject line saying “Yes!” and listing the number of people coming. Bring your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers.

We’re conservatives, we’re women, and we’re in this to win.

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August 8, 2012 by Hannah

A Threat Isn’t a Guarantee

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

“[T]o the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word… If you start with nothing, demand 100 per cent, then compromise for 30 per cent, you’re 30 per cent ahead.” That’s Saul Alinsky’s advice in Rules for Radicals.

Unfortunately for Leftists, sometimes when you start with nothing and demand everything, you end up with nothing. That’s what happened when the student chapter of the ACLU and other organizations tried to kick Chick-fil-A off of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

The first public sign that something was afoot was two articles published on February 10, 2011 in the Daily Illini, the dominant campus newspaper. In one article, a student opinion columnist roasted Chick-fil-A as a whole because a Pennsylvania Chick-fil-A franchise donated chicken to the Pennsylvania Family Institute: “I’m not a fan of sleeping with the enemy (or feeding the enemy), and that’s what Chick-fil-A virtually did. Just because you’re not Hitler doesn’t make it OK to supply ammo to the Germans.” She went on to call for a boycott and the removal of the campus Chick-fil-A: “We sometimes forget it, but our voice is pretty strong, and if we protest hard enough, we have the power to get certain food chains we find displeasing out of the Union.”

The second article showed a small metal crucifix embedded in a Chick-fil-A sandwich and stated, “University students may be biting into more than they can chew.” It gave no details on the infamous Philadelphia exchange, simply saying, “Chick-fil-A, an original Southern restaurant and fast food chain, has been openly criticized for its transparent Christian values and conservative religious ideals.” The leap in logic was that Christian values suppressed LGBT rights, though this was never explicitly stated. Two students quoted in the article not only supported a boycott of the campus Chick-fil-A, but called for it to be banned.

A week later action on the issue was reported in a third article, which featured a photo of the campus Chick-fil-A’s “Closed on Sundays” sign. Representatives from the student ACLU chapter and OUTlaw (a campus organization formed by LGBT law students) had written a letter against Chick-fil-A to the University President and Interim Chancellor. Interestingly, two students invited to comment on the developments did not lend personal support for Chick-fil-A, but affirmed a business’s right to do what it pleased: “The University isn’t forcing us to buy Chick-fil-A. They aren’t forcing us to eat Chick-fil-A.” A member of Building Bridges, a religious LGBT group said, “I don’t think that it is necessary to try and go close it down as some of the universities have tried to do and some movements on campus are doing,”

Thus, while campus activists pulled off the gloves, they didn’t necessarily have the support of the bulk of campus.

Four days later the Daily Illini editorial board weighed in, saying “Many companies make political and social donations, and if your convictions lead you to take your business away from a company – including Chick-fil-A – that is completely within your rights. But banishing the restaurant from campus based on its adherence to religious convictions would be true discrimination.”

While the students quoted by Daily Illini articles were either dead-set on removing Chick-fil-A from campus, or viewed Chick-fil-A as entitled to distasteful actions, a steady current of pro-Chick-fil-A sentiment ran through the campus news outlet’s comments section. The newspaper did not print any pro-Chick-fil-A Letters-to-the-Editor (though not for lack of trying), but at least in the comments sections students could share their thoughts, such as: “Since when is having ‘traditional Christian values’ a crime?” and “Don’t you believe in diversity of viewpoint and belief?” Two Facebook pages cropped up in support of the campus Chick-fil-A.

Beyond drumming up support among registered student organizations and writing letters to campus administrators, the next key step was to pass an anti-Chick-fil-A resolution in the student-run Illinois Student Senate. This organization has elected representatives of each college in the University. While its resolutions are not formally binding, they offer significant weight for campus activists who can use the ISS’s decision to advance their goals.

When the vote was moved back a week, the president of the campus ACLU wrote in to the campus newspaper. He affirmed Chick-fil-A’s right to donate where it wanted, but called students to protest it by boycotting and taking action to remove Chick-fil-A from campus. He said, “This is not an attenuated, symbolic movement by GLBT groups. This is about taking a pragmatic look at the causes of anti-gay oppression and attempting to directly address those causes. This is saying that we are against University space being used to facilitate the filtering of funds from students to groups that wish harm upon members of our campus community.”

His views, though passionately expressed, did not reflect the views of the campus as a whole. Ultimately, after heated debate, the Illinois Student Senate voted against the resolution.

Interestingly, the failure didn’t even get a headline: the decision was buried in the middle of another article. It deserves a headline, however. It shows what can happen when political activists put political correctness above others’ rights. They can be defeated.

This is important to remember as we consider what’s happening with Chick-fil-A now. As Mayor Emanuel and Alderman Moreno try to set aside Chick-fil-A-free zones, Equality Illinois has set its sights even higher. The largest LGBT organization in Illinois has called for all 19 Illinois Chick-fil-As to be removed.

For students who will be on campuses with Chick-fil-A this fall, prepare now. Bring up the issue with your campus representatives. Get involved in your campus newspaper, or start your own. Your circulation may not rival the established campus outlets, but you can give a place for people to openly voice their views. Start a petition showing your support of Chick-fil-A. Talk to your friends, so they know what’s happening. And keep in mind that even the Illinois ACLU supported the Chick-fil-A CEO’s freedom of speech!

There will be mixed feelings about Chick-fil-A. And there must be freedom to criticize or applaud this company accordingly. For now, that freedom is alive and well at the University of Illinois. Just this summer, one student publicly expressed his displeasure with the campus restaurant, and others started a Boycott Chick-fil-A UIUC Facebook page, but others made a special effort to show their support there on Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day and support a Keep Chick-fil-A at UIUC Facebook page.

If activists try to close down your Chick-fil-A, remember that the Left is making it up as they go along, and wanting something isn’t the same as getting it. A threat carries no guarantee of inevitability.

in Ethics / Politics 0 comments

July 31, 2012 by Hannah

Sacred Cows and Holy Cows

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

When President Obama questioned a business owner’s role in the success of his company, he questioned more than who gets credit for what. He questioned private property itself. If “you didn’t build that,” do you really even own it?

As grand as the Great Pyramids and the Roman Coliseum are, there’s something profoundly unsettling on reflecting that they were built on the backs of slaves. If you and I were properly indoctrinated, we’d feel the same indignation when we looked at the Sears Tower or the Space Needle.

Because, we’re told, businesses are the Bain of our existence. Our employer may press a paycheck into our sweaty, calloused hands, but he’s paying only a fraction of what is rightfully ours. We’ll claim the whole shebang when the workers unite. Then we’ll collectivize… and restratify?

President Obama’s administration isn’t hostile to all businesses, only those that don’t toe the line. If things continue as they have been, a business’s position in the heap will depend on their leaders’ ideology. Everything belongs to the federal government, but that need not be overemphasized if everyone plays their part. The divide between private and public can be blurred when the government and the businesses’ values are aligned.

Rahm Emanuel may take issue with Chick-fil-A, but he certainly doesn’t have a problem with another cow-bedecked chain. When Jostein Solheim became the new CEO of the company, he pointed out: “My mantra that I’ve repeated a hundred times since starting at Ben & Jerry’s is: ‘Change is a wonderful thing. The world needs dramatic change to address the social and environmental challenges we are facing. Values led businesses can play a critical role in driving that positive change. We need to lead by example, and prove to the world that this is the best way to run a business. Historically, this company has been and must continue to be a pioneer to continually challenge how business can be a force for good and address inequities inherent in global business.”

As Benjamin Bull from American Thinker has pointed out, Ben & Jerry’s can sell “Hubby-Hubby” or “A-ppley Ever After” ice cream to promote homosexual “marriage,” but Don Cathy of Chick-fil-A’s better not breathe the faintest murmur against the practice. It’s “Have it your way” as long as it’s their way, and “I’m lovin’ it” as long it advances the agenda flavor of the day.

What’s most important isn’t the ability for a company to survive without government, but it’s willingness to cohabitate with it. Anything’s sustainable, as long as there’s taxpayers to pay for it. General Motors went bankrupt and sacrificed the value of its employees’ pensions, the Chevy Cruze is quite literally going up in flames, but what difference does it make? General Electric maintains a close interdependency with the Obama administration, and its justifications max out the baloney meter, but what’s the impetus to change? Success as a business is guaranteed, when the proper political connections are made.

All this can last as long as Americans are willing to contribute without being allowed to choose, and as long as there’s enough hosts to support the hangers-on. Not to worry. As President Obama said, “There are a whole bunch of hard-working people out there.”

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July 24, 2012 by Hannah

The Root of Law

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

When a small band of American colonists took on the world superpower of their day, they didn’t speak from a position of military superiority. They also didn’t cite a Rasmussen poll or make an emotional appeal. They presented the facts: King George III’s actions assaulted God’s laws.

Their actions weren’t based on a moral majority; they were based on a moral authority. This appeal to a higher law is not to be underestimated. The Founders were deeply motivated by a Judeo-Christian worldview which showed that the unchanging God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the definition of all that was good, and that He had revealed absolute truth by embedding it in each person’s soul, and providing a written, unchanging account of His Word. The Founders freely acknowledged the role that Judeo-Christianity played in the framing of this new nation’s laws. As John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” James Wilson, U.S. Supreme Court Justice and signer of the Constitution, said, “Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine… Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other.”

According to Judeo-Christianity, each person has inherent worth because he is created in God’s image. But because man is fallen, he is not perfectible in this life. God is the ultimate authority, and no man is “above the law.” Anyone’s actions can be weighed against the ideal that God provided. The Founders established a system where all laws were compared to the Constitution, and, ultimately, to the absolute law of God. Americans could pursue a “more perfect” union by studying the ideal God provided for their nature and human systems and work to more closely approach the ideal. The Founders’ understanding of this and their first-hand experience with a tyrant allowed them to build a system that affirmed personal freedom and provided a limited government with separated powers. They gave us something they had not inherited from the Crown: a Constitution.

The words of our Declaration and Constitution were not intended to molder behind glass; they were intended to be read and understood by every American citizen. They can stand up to detailed legal scrutiny, but they can also be grasped by someone who wants to understand the Founders’ original intent. Interpreting the Constitution isn’t a privilege reserved for nine men in black robes; it’s something each of us should do. How else can the policeman, soldier, judge, or President’s oath to uphold the Constitution have any meaning? How can any of us obey a law we don’t understand?

The genius of the Founders’ system is evident, even as we see it crumbling through misuse. A person did not have to be a Jew or a Christian to survive and thrive in America, but he did need to respect the principles that governed the nation’s founding: principles such as the equality of all people before the law, the right to own private property, and the requirement for multiple witnesses to testify in criminal proceedings.

Law was not arbitrary, but purposeful. Laws could be found to be good or bad based on how they compared to the highest law of the land, and the Law of God. Even after many of our leaders ceased to be personally guided by Judeo-Christianity, a latent memory of this worldview maintained the original design of our nation.

All that is changing. Clay and iron are being mixed, and the amalgam is brittle. Various worldviews overlap to a point, but some of their core properties are completely incompatible. One must gain the ascendancy. A battle of worldviews is taking place in America, and it’s unclear which will dominate. Six of the major players are Biblical Judeo-Christianity, Secular Humanism (“liberalism”), Marxism-Leninism (“Leftism”), Cosmic Humanism (“New Age”), Postmodernism, and Islam.

All offer very different approaches to ethics, history, law, theology, and other aspects of a worldview. If Judeo-Christianity offers a bounded sandbox for statecraft, Marxism-Leninism stokes animosities between sandcarriers and sandcrafters, Islam demands a pre-fab home, and Postmodernism questions the existence of sand. Since many of the worldviews deny the very existence of God, they lift up man to the throne of absolute judgment. They see truth not as a fixed ideal, but as an evolving mass, which the more ambitious seek to shape. All have different answers to the question “What is the basic nature of man?” which is why they differ so completely on questions such as the ethics of taxation and redistribution, union lobbies, abortion, and homosexuality. Many worldviews do not see the Constitution as a guide to understand ultimate reality or a protective barrier that applies the truth discovered in a triumph over tyranny, but shackles on human development.

Several key battlegrounds between the worldviews are the education, culture, and politics. The trend in these institutions is not for a person to critically evaluate ideas on their merits, but to find the consensus and conform to it. Our educational system could be a location for the free interchange of ideas, but more often it radically transforms a person’s worldview by making full use of authority structures. The process that began inside the classroom can continue outside, if a person does not critically evaluate the messages of worldviews blazing to them through films, celebrities, and the news feed. Finally, as Sharia Law’s codified dhimmitude so eloquently demonstrates, a person does not have to convert to be manipulated and subjugated. A worldview can dominate others by occupying positions of power, even if its adherents are in the minority. Because the laws of our nation reflect our lawmakers, as the elected officials go, so goes the nation.

If we are to reclaim our nation, we must do what our Founders did. We must compare our laws and our leaders to the ultimate standard, draw our own conclusions, and take action. This country is too precious to surrender.

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July 19, 2012 by Hannah

Inside Mike Madigan’s 22nd District Voting Machine

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

What’s inside Mike Madigan Democratic Party Voting Machine? I met some cogs and found some loose washers when I pollwatched in his district during this year’s Illinois primary.

140 of us volunteered in a Team 200 Project sponsored by the Illinois Election Integrity Initiative, John Reeves, and the Republican Renaissance PAC. Our goal was to ensure ballot integrity by watching the election process. As Carol Davis from the Illinois Election Integrity Initiative points out, “[I]f our vote doesn’t have integrity behind it, then what do we have in this country? That is the fountainhead from which everything else springs.”

Anyone can pollwatch if they’re registered to vote, have proper credentials, and want to sit tight for 13 hours. But it’s nice to have some idea of what you’re doing before you show up. We were trained and equipped the night before the election. One extremely helpful resource was the Chicago Judge of Election Handbook. We were encouraged to make sure the ballot scanner was zeroed, keep a vote tally throughout the day, bring home a copy of the vote tally printed at the end of the day, and as much as possible ensure that proper procedures were followed in the precinct. I couldn’t touch anything, but I could sit within eye and earshot, and ask questions.

Another useful document in this process was a list prepared by Team 200 organizers. It listed the registered voters in my precinct, and showed their age, sex, address, whether their voting status was “active” or “inactive,” and whether they were alive or dead. It turns out that there’s some delay in removing a person’s name from the registration list. If the state has a compelling reason to think the voter’s name should be removed (i.e. they moved or died), they deem them “inactive.”

If a person has been labeled “inactive,” but shows up to vote, they should be challenged by an election judge to prove their identity by showing a picture ID and answering a question about personal information such as date of birth or Social Security Number. If they cannot establish their identity, they should be issued a provisional ballot. A provisional ballot allows a person to vote, but its results aren’t added to the official tally unless the voter’s case is proved.

The final piece of information showed whether by government records each person was deceased. It was an important point: five of the people in my precinct were deceased, yet active–at least when it came to voting. My zombies didn’t show up. But then it was only the primary.

As each voter came into the room, they were asked “Republican or Democrat?” That information was first recorded on the call list of the Democrat precinct captain who checked in periodically. Blue, if the person voted Democrat, red if he voted Republican. No identification of any kind was required, beyond their signature. They were asked to sign a sheet of paper, and their signature could be compared to the signature on file in the voter registration files. From what I could see, the judges did not compare the two signatures, and no election judge challenged any voters based on their signature throughout the day.

You’d like to think that there’s at least a system of checks-and-balances, but not enough Republicans volunteer to be election judges in Chicago, so there’s some “Republican-for-a-day” activity going on. One guy who voted in my precinct voted Democrat–while wearing a “Republican Election Judge” sticker.

Election judges were also very unfamiliar with how to handle routine election practices: even though I challenged two inactive voters to the election judges, one was not asked to supply any additional information, and the second showed a picture ID but was not asked to provide any other information. Both were not issued provisional ballots, but allowed to vote with regular ballots. Chicago’s Board of Election website shows pride in the fact that over 4,000 high school and college students served as student election judges during the 2008 and 2010 elections, but I saw how student judges could easily be intimidated by seasoned political operatives.

Three of the judges in my precinct were student judges. At one point, I had slipped out to use the restroom, and when I came back into the room, the precinct captain was closely questioning the head student judge. When he asked her how things had been going, she mentioned that someone had tried to vote whose name wasn’t on the list. He asked, “But you let her vote, right?” She saw me coming up and didn’t answer the question. But you could tell she was pretty upset.

Many people that voted in the precinct where I was working showed their ID because they thought they should and were mildly surprised or even shocked when they found out they didn’t need to. I could quickly see why the confusion went on, however. Some voters who showed their IDs weren’t told that it wasn’t necessary, and thus will continue in their delusion through at least the next election cycle.

One man, when told he didn’t need to show his ID, held it higher and said solemnly it was a matter of principle. Another man came in very upset because he couldn’t find his voter ID and he was worried someone had taken it. The election judges couldn’t understand his concern: he didn’t need it, after all.

A slow but steady stream of Democrats came through all day, with a few Republicans sprinkled in. Throughout the day, the local precinct captain was back to take down the names of those who had not yet made an appearance so he could call them in. It was easy to keep track, because an election judge was marking it off for him.

While most of the hours had been relaxed, as closing time came on, the tension increased exponentially. The election judge overseeing the process was a young college student, and was unsure of what needed to happen to close the polling place. The votes from the paper and electronic ballots were collated, one tape printed the final vote tally for the precinct, but before another one could be printed, the polling place administrator accidentally turned off machine printing the tapes. Panic ensued and the election judge called the Election Board, but their instructions were to bring all the equipment to the main office—nothing more could be done at the precinct itself. Even though I couldn’t take a copy of the tape (which all pollwatchers can request), I did compare my vote tally to that listed on the tape. They were the same.

Here is what several other pollwatchers experienced during their time in the district that day:

One polling place was using the wrong ballot, and electioneering was happeningless than 100 feet from the door. After everything was said and done, leaders in this initiative gathered to discuss the outcome:

From what we could see, voter turnout was a competition among precinct captains. It lead one precinct captain to absurd heights: his precinct’s polling place was installed in his own basement, and he placed an eye-catching, two-story-tall inflatable eagle in his front yard. In case this wasn’t enough, he donned an Uncle Sam outfit to welcome voters.

Much of what I saw firsthand and heard about from the Team 200 recap boiled down to marketing or cluelessness. But the Chicago election process is a world of opportunity for those who only care about the final number tally. Plus, we saw the machine on a slow day. I hate to see what happens when it chugs up to full speed.

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July 18, 2012 by Hannah

Where There’s Life, There’s Hope–Even in Illinois

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

With his uptilted chin and elitist policies, President Obama has proved how little he understands the average American or cares to represent him. Case in point: his abortion policies.

Mr. Obama’s voting record as a state and U.S. senator proved his support for pre- and postnatal infanticide, an intentness he sometimes toned down on the campaign trail:

Rick Warren: “[A]t what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”
Barack Obama: “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

But such agnosticism did not keep him from shilling to Planned Parenthood or taking a definite stance on the fate of the unplanned unborn:

“I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

The social media prowess of President Obama’s campaign helped propel him into office in 2008, but it certainly did not help him understand the views of average Democrats, let alone average Americans. This May, Gallup reportedthat a majority of Americans (50%) self-identify as prolife, while only 41% self-identify as prochoice. This prolife majority is comprised not only of Republicans, but also of Democrats and Independents. Members of all three political affiliations increasingly see themselves as prolife.

Even though a majority of Americans disagree with him on abortion, President Obama shows no sign of damping his relentless abortion agenda. Instead, he lobbied for Obamacare. Before Obamacare, many Americans (myself included) had grown used to what seemed to be the abortion status quo. Roe v. Wade survived, but state and national prolife laws provided checks on particularly egregious abortion techniques and practices. It was tempting to think that abortion could be contained and eradicated slowly. That in the meantime the Hyde Amendment would prevent taxpayers from being forced to subsidize abortions. We tried not to think about the financial support we already were forced to give Planned Parenthood, and the lives claimed as the slow-motion strategy played out.

Obamacare changed all that. President Obama has destroyed the all-powerful illusion of the abortion status quo, and we begin to see there’s no emergency brake on evil. New methods of assaulting consciences are continually being revealed. “Abortion-free” health insurance is becoming an endangered species. And Obamacare is increasing the country’s prolife/proabortion divide as nothing else could.

As John-Paul Deddens, the founder and executive director of Students for Life of Illinois puts it, “Obamacare gives unprecedented power to the executive branch to use insurance requirements to buy votes. The abortion lobby has already gotten its pay-off through the contraception mandate and the abortion surcharge instituted by the HHS. These mandates will not only constitute political favoritism but also the largest expansion of abortion since Roe forcing everyone to pay for the contraception, sterilizations and abortions of others.”

As disturbing as the implications are for the prolife community, it’s even more frightening for the unborn of America. “Safe, legal, and rare” is becoming “Just as unsafe, legal, and subsidized.” Indeed, the 2008 Democratic Party’s platform, which was patterned from Obama’s campaign, dropped the word “rare” in reference to abortion entirely.

Even in Illinois, there is hope amid the heartache. This is where President Obama came of political age, and where he first voiced his support of postnatal infanticide. But it’s also where Jill Stanekbegan her political and ethical career. As a nurse in Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Mrs. Stanek saw multiple children who survived abortions but were abandoned in a soiled utility room to die. Her testimony to Congress on behalf of the unborn has been strategic in bills such as the Born Alive Infant Protections Act, and she now maintains a prolife blog that earned her the title “Worst Person in the World!” from Keith Olbermann.

Mrs. Stanek is not alone. Prolifers from across the state participate in events such as 40 Days for Life and Life Chain to pray for the end of abortion. This year, five Illinois cities participated in the spring 40 Days for Life campaign, and there are already 96 confirmed locations for Life Chain in Illinois. Meanwhile, prolife organizations such as the Illinois Family Institute are keeping Illinoisans abreast of prolife bills, news, and perspectives.

Young people in Illinois are finding ways to voice their prolife convictions. Live Action’s investigations in Illinois have complemented the work of prolife elected officials in the statehouse. Thousands of students gather in Washington, D.C. on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade for March for Life, and Illinois students are among them. (Here is a video from the 2012 March).

And four years ago, Illinoisans Mike Schaefer and Jimmy Becker combined their love for biking with their concern for unborn children, and Biking for Babies was born. This year, over the course of nine days, ten bikers rode the 1100 miles from New Orleans to Chicago, to encourage others to become involved in the prolife movement. They also raised $31,000 for eight Midwest prolife organizations, including the Living Alternatives Pregnancy Resource Center in Champaign, the Life Network in Waterloo, and Students for Life of Illinois in Champaign.

On the last day of the ride, Mike Schaefer blogged,

“I can simply say that it was a real blessing to bike with and be supported by such wonderful friends. It really isn’t a cause for which we ride. It’s because life is worth living that we ride. The linguistic, political, and social framework of that which is ‘pro-life’, in as much as it may look similar to any other social platform, only attempts to share with others the far bigger and more meaningful reality of something that we are certain of because there is something ultimately very beautiful about it–something so valuable and noble at every stage in life that we fear doing damage to our own humanity should we take it away from someone else, no matter the circumstance.”

The tenacity it takes to plan and execute such a trip is also needed on college campuses, where faculty and peers are often openly hostile to those who take a prolife stance. Students for Life of Illinois is standing in the gap, and offering encouragement and resources to students on 24 Illinois campuses.

Recently this organization recognized three students for their outstanding contributions to the prolife effort in Illinois. Christina Foreman and Pam Suresca have been outstanding leaders on their campuses (the University of Illinois at Chicago and Loyola University), and were named Passionate Leader of the Year and Outstanding Student Leader of the Year.

Videos made by others from their campuses show the contagious enthusiasm these young women have about building a prolife culture: “What stands out the most to me about Christina is the loving way in which she communicates the prolife message. Christina is utterly fearless when speaking about the prolife movement.”

The third award recipient was Anne Marie Dust, an alumna of Bradley University, was named the Courageous Student of the Year. When Miss Dust was applying for a nursing residency at Vanderbilt University, the University required her to agree to participate in abortions. Understandably shaken, she weighed her options. Objecting might limit her chances to take her nursing examinations, or even find a job. Finally, she made her choice. “At the end of the day you have to stand up for what is most important to you,” she says. With the help of the Alliance Defense Fund, she filed a federal complaint. Here is the result of her actions:

The legacy of Illinois and this nation hangs in the balance. Each of us must decide whose vision will shape the future: the proabortion vision of Barack Obama, or the prolife vision of Jill Stanek, John-Paul, Anne Marie, Mike, Jimmy, and others. Here in President Obama’s home state, our fight to defend the unborn is just beginning. But where there’s life, there’s hope.

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July 13, 2012 by Hannah

The Surprising History of African-American Politics

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

Obama’s relationship with African-American voters just got a bit more dysfunctional. This marks the third year he’s been too busy to personally address the National Association of Colored People (NAACP). The best stand-in the White House could provide was Vice President Biden, who emphasized the NAACP’s purpose: “On civil rights, your raison d’etre, the reason for our existence, I want to remind everybody of one thing: Remember, remember what this [organization], at its core, was all about… It was all about the franchise. It was about the right to vote. Because when you have the right to vote, you have the right to change things.” He then claimed that Republicans are threatening this basic right: “[Republicans] see a different future, where voting is made harder, not easier, where the Justice Department is even prohibited from challenging any of those efforts to suppress votes.”

It’s ironic that Vice President Biden would decide to level this charge, given the history of his own party. It is the Democrat party, not the Republican party, that has sought to disenfranchise voters through legal chicanery and, when that fails, outright coercion.

The Republican Party was formed in opposition to slavery. One of its co-founders was Charles Sumner, who in 1865 as a U.S. Senator gave a two-day speech against slavery and was mercilessly clubbed by a pro-slavery, Democratic representative on the Senate floor. Later, in the midst of the Civil War, it was a Republican president who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a Republican Congress that passed the Thirteenth Amendment that in 1865 outlawed slavery: all 116 of the Republicans in the U.S. Congress voted for this amendment while only 19 of the 82 Democrats did (and these were the Northern Democrats). Even though the Civil War was over, intense prejudice still existed. As former slave states rejoined the union in the days of Reconstruction, many former Confederate soldiers and sympathizers were present in the Democrat party and not all were content to respect the rights of African-Americans. Congressmen required state legislatures to fully endorse the Thirteenth Amendment in order for their representatives to be reinstated in Congress.

When Southern States adopted Black Codes to intimidate African-Americans, it was a Republican Congress that passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It overruled the Dred Scott decision by affirming citizenship for all people born in the U.S., requiring due process in legal matters, and instituting equal protection of all citizens before the law. It was also a Republican Congress that passed the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 that prohibits any citizen of age from being denied the right to vote, regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Together, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments held promise of new opportunities for African-Americans. Practice, however, proved difficult. In 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels was an African-American candidate for federal office in Mississippi. He was a Republican, and his political opponents mercilessly disputed his candidacy. Though he was an American, a free man born to free parents, and never enslaved, Mississippi Democrats claimed that he had only been a citizen for two years—from the date that the Fourteenth Amendment had been ratified in 1868—and thus did not meet the requirement that a U.S. Senator be a citizen for at least nine years before assuming office. Overcoming these objections, on February 25, 1870 Mr. Revels became the first African-American U.S. Senator and the first African-American elected to federal office. He restarted the representation of the state U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis abandoned to join the Confederacy.

The significance of this was not lost on his contemporaries. As fellow U.S. Senator, Republican James Nye from Nevada, said: “Jefferson Davis went out to establish a government whose cornerstone should be the oppression and perpetual enslavement of a race because their skin differed in color from his. Sir, what a magnificent spectacle of retributive justice is witnessed here today! In the place of that proud, defiant man, who marched out to trample under foot the Constitution and the laws of the country he had sworn to support, comes back one of that humble race whom he would have enslaved forever to take and occupy his seat upon this floor.”

Republicans had fought for the right for African-Americans to vote, and African-Americans fought for the right to be elected as Republicans. All seven of the African-Americans elected to federal office in the 41st and 42nd Congresses were Republicans.

Such “uppitiness” was not to be tolerated. If African-Americans could not be kept down through legal disputes, it could be solved in other ways. The antagonism that fueled the Civil War found other outlets–the Ku Klux Klan was born. It served as the domestic terrorist wing of the Democrat party, href=”http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/grant-kkk/” target=”_blank”>targeting Republican voters.

It took the action of former Civil War General U. S. S. Grant and legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1871 to stamp down the KKK.

Even with this action, voter intimidation continued. One thinly veiled threat in a Charleston News and Courier read, “Killing is not always murder, and violations of law are not always a crime. There is an earlier law than the statutes–the law of self-preservation. That law was the guide and master in South Carolina in 1876, and it will be appealed to whenever there is any danger of a return to the vileness of negro rule.” Appealing to the members of the U.S. House in 1882 to defend African-Americans’ right to vote, Republican U.S. Representative and former slave John Lynch said: “They were faithful and true to you then; they are no less so today. And yet they ask no special favors as a class; they ask no special protection as a race. They feel that they purchased their inheritance, when upon the battlefields of this country, they watered the tree of liberty with the precious blood that flowed from their loyal veins. They ask no favors, they desire; and must have; an equal chance in the race of life.” The Republican Party reprinted excerpts from Mr. Lynch’s speech in theirRepublican Campaign Text Book for 1882, and documented voter fraud and intimidation in Democratic strongholds.

As time went on, there were extensive efforts to repeal the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments even in 1900, and the flawed “historical” film “The Birth of a Nation” was used as a recruiting film for the KKK beginning in 1915. This was the first film shown in the White House, thanks to President Woodrow Wilson. Direct quotes from President Wilson’s book “A History of the American People,” appeared throughout the film, such as: “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” President Wilson segregated the federal government and supported a bill that would have made it a felony for a white man to marry a black woman in Washington, D.C. His endorsement of “The Birth of a Nation” allowed its director to stave off onslaughts from the NAACP.

Between 1882 and 1964, 4,743 lynchings were documented in the U.S.–3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites. Many Republican party platforms condemned lynchingsand Republicans and Democrats introduced anti-lynching bills, but the bulk of the Democratic party successfully stamped out each of these bills and did not address lynchings in their party platform. In 1932, more than 75% of the African-American vote went to Herbert Hoover over FDR; FDR won, however. During his four terms in office, the Democrat party took a new stance on racial discrimination, and began to win over African-American voters. FDR’s successor, Harry S. Truman, became the first Democratic president to support pro-African-American policy, and faced intense opposition from the bulk of his own party. Some Democrats joined Eisenhower in his fight for civil rights. Finally, in the 1960s, a Republican Congress advanced civil rights legislation that a Democrat, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law.

From FDR’s second term to the present day, a majority of African-American voters have voted Democrat. But this trend is not inevitable. Outspoken African-American conservatives such as Allen West, Deneen Borelli, and Thomas Sowell are showing that the legacy of African-Americans such as Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington is alive and well.

Thomas Sowell’s advice on regaining the African-American vote is to boldly show African-Americans the alternatives open to them. This is exactly what Mitt Romney did this week in his address to the NAACP: “When it comes to education reform, candidates cannot have it both ways – talking up education reform, while indulging the same groups that are blocking reform. You can be the voice of disadvantaged public-school students, or you can be the protector of special interests like the teachers unions, but you can’t be both. I have made my choice: As president, I will be a champion of real education reform in America, and I won’t let any special interest get in the way.”

African-Americans have a long and powerful political history. As they become better acquainted with it, their view of the Democrat Party and their place in it may change. If African-Americans look elsewhere for a political home, we must ensure they find a viable alternative.

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July 3, 2012 by Hannah

Guns and Brains

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

Forget the fact that gun-related crime has declined since 1993. Forget that 40-45% of American households own guns, and there are over 270 million guns in America. Forget that 99.87% of these guns are not used to commit crimes.[1]

Some say that just as food causes obesity, guns cause crime. That’s why both need to be strictly regulated. Forget strengthening the family, inculcating proper respect for life, teaching the proper use of firearms, or reducing the time between a crime and its punishment. These “solutions” imply that a person actually chooses to commit a crime, while we all know they’re the helpless victims of society. They can’t help it; they must be protected from themselves. Take away the gun. Problem solved.

Or is it?

Last week the Champaign-based group Guns Save Life showed the logical disconnect of a recent initiative to target guns. In the spirit of Cash for Clunkers, Cash for Fridges, and its illustrious spinoffs there emerged Cash for Firearms.

If you were a local hood strolling the Chicago streets, all you needed to do was hitch up your pants with your left hand, hand over your gun with your right hand, and collect a $100 gift card for your trouble. Every time a gun takes wing, a former owner gets some bling.

Though a total of 5,500 guns were relinquished, the number of would-be armed assailants that actually took part is unclear. They can, however, be classified as “criminals saved or created.”

After all, even if all the participants had turned out to be murderous punks, they would still have $100 apiece to put toward another weapon should a murderous rage ensnare them. And guns are readily available on the black market.

While the program designers were patently optimistic about its outcome, some citizens had their doubts. As John Boch of Guns Save Life was quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times, “If you were a criminal, you would be a fool to go there with the police presence. What criminal would turn in the tool he uses to do his trade for a $100 card?”

The effort wasn’t an entire dud, however. Members of Guns Save Life gathered and turned in 60 unusable firearms and several BB guns, netting a $6,240 payback. They then invested the money in a cause close to their hearts—equipment and proper training in the use of guns at an NRA youth camp. Finally, a program we can believe in!

[1] 99.87% was calculated by dividing the number of annual crimes involving a gun (340,000) by the total number of guns in the U.S. (270 million), and subtracting this from 100%.

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June 28, 2012 by Hannah

Kinzinger Plans to Fight Government Takeover of Health Care

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

Shortly after the Supreme Court released its decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Representative Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) weighed in on the ruling making a formal statement and then answered questions from Washington DC via a phone press conference call. Mr. Kinzinger further explained his thoughts on Obamacare to reporters from various media agencies:

Wanda Rohl this morning said, “The government already makes people buy auto insurance. The government already makes people do other things, and we are already paying for the uninsured anyway, so she’d rather have everybody covered. Could you respond to that?”

Kinzinger: “I think Wanda’s made it clear that she believes that there’s a huge role for basically a full government takeover of healthcare. It’s an area where we fundamentally disagree. State government—and keep in mind it is state—can make people buy car insurance, but they can’t force people to drive. You don’t have to have a license to simply exist as a person. In this case, it looks like the Supreme Court agreed that the Federal government does not have the power to do that. However, again, [Obamacare proponents] went and said, ‘This is actually a tax increase and the Federal government does have a right to tax.’

“So, from that perspective, this is a tax increase on the American people and it is not saying that the federal government has a right to make people buy something simply for existing.”

What is the next step?

Kinzinger: “The reality is, the Supreme Court says the healthcare law can survive today, but I think the healthcare law ends on November 6th when Obama is not reelected. We’re going to vote to repeal this once again. We’ve already voted many, many times to repeal this law, and just because the Supreme Court upheld it today doesn’t make it anymore popular. The American people are still very upset. This is the law that’s going to put us deeper into debt and reduce the quality of healthcare that people are getting, and so we are going to continue to fight to repeal this entire bill.”

What will happen if the Republicans don’t get veto-proof majority control of the Senate in November? Won’t we still have this quagmire?

Kinzinger: “That’s the reality, but the fact is, the American people are pretty upset about this law. It’s just like what you saw back when the law passed initially: there were a lot of Democrat defections because they felt the wrath of the American people. I tell you: a lot of people out here in Washington, D. C. are political folks and they understand what public pressure is. I think that if the Senate is going to stand in the way of a repeal of this very unpopular law, some of these more moderate Democrats or these Democrats in tough districts are going to understand that the American people are not happy and potentially flip. There’s no doubt that today the news of the Supreme Court’s decision was a blow to the efforts to repeal it, but that’s not going to stop us from fully repealing or making attempts to fully repeal this law.”

Is this going to be primarily what the election is about as we head into November? Do you think other issues are going to be droned out now?

KInzinger: “No, I think the election is always about unemployment, about the terrible economy we’re in, the fact that the President, when he was elected, said, ‘If I don’t turn this economy around, it’ll be a one-term proposition.’ I think that’s going to be number one. The American people are hurting. They want jobs. They want a president that actually understands that and tries to lead. Is this going to be one of the top issues? Yes, it will be. Healthcare will now be one of the top issues discussed. The number one issue is still going to be the fact that too many of our neighbors do not have the opportunity to go out and get jobs, and it’s going be a referendum, partially, on the fact that the President has not lead the American people and still refuses to lead on that issue.”

What would the Republicans replace the Obama healthcare bill with?

Kinzinger: “Well, as I mentioned in my statement, there’s a lot of it, including allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. Portability for health insurance: you shouldn’t have to lose your health insurance when you switch jobs. That actually stems from back in the day when somebody would work for the same corporation for twenty years. Now, if you leave a company, you should be able to take your insurance plan with you. We need tort reforms, so doctors don’t have to spend [money] on unnecessary tests to practice defensively; they can practice the best for that doctor-patient relationship.

“Allowing small businesses to band together with the buying power of big businesses to dilute the pre-existing conditions that may have somebody have to pay way too much money. There’s a lot of potential things that we can do to replace this law. The fact is, we’ve got to bring the cost of healthcare down, and then we’ve got to figure out how to fully cover everybody through lower costs. But you can’t do that with just the government takeover of healthcare like we see here, and with writing a big, blank government check when the government’s out of money.”

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June 28, 2012 by Hannah

Nine Lives: The U.S. Supreme Court Justices

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

With its wide range of ideologies, the Court has heroes for progressives, libertarians, and conservatives. And in the boxing ring of the Supreme Court chambers these justices engage in some of the highest-stake intellectual fisticuffs ever carried out.

Who are the nine people that decided the fate of Obamacare? It’s worth the time to examine the lives and characteristics of the members of the highest court in the land.

Two justices (Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) greeted the world in Trenton, New Jersey, and other justices hail from as far south as Pin Point, Georgia (Clarence Thomas), and as far west as San Francisco (Stephen Breyer). Interestingly, none of the justices were born in the Midwest.

Though some were born into humble circumstances and others enjoyed a wealthy upbringing, all justices obtained their law degrees from Ivy League institutions, with five attending Harvard, three attending Yale, and one attending Columbia.

This uniformity in choice of schools is not reflected in the justices’ ideologies, however. Given the amount of time many justices spend on the Court and the scope of cases they consider, there is a wealth of information about the political views of most of the Supreme Court justices. Two measures commonly used to compare justices’ ideologies are the Martin-Quinn score and the percent or fraction of conservative votes cast by a justice in non-unanimous decisions.

The Martin-Quinn score describes a justice’s political ideology for a given year by assigning more negative values to more liberal ideologies and more positive values to more conservative ideologies. In this way, the evolution of a given justice can be tracked over time, and justices can rapidly be compared to one another. For 2010, the court’s ideology as indicated by their Martin-Quinn scores ranged from 0.024 (Stephen Breyer) to 5.689 (Clarence Thomas). The median score was 2.071 (Anthony Kennedy’s, the most common swing vote). The justices range from casting a more conservative vote about 37.2% of the time (Stephen Breyer) to 82.2% of the time (Clarence Thomas).

How much time said heroes have spent on the Court or can expect to stay there varies widely. The average number of years the justices on this court have served is 13 years, but this disguises a bimodal distribution, with four justices having served six or less years, and five justices finishing 17-25 years on the bench. Liberal justices have spent 1-18 years on the Court, while conservative justices have spent 6-25 years there.

The fact that justices can exert their influence for a quarter century and more shows the breadth of influence a given administration can have years after the Oval Office has been redecorated. Five presidents can claim the current justices as their enduring legacy, with two current justices appointed by Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama, with the exception of H. W. Bush, who has only one appointee remaining. Notably, this appointee is Clarence Thomas, the most conservative justice currently serving on the Court.

The long-term influence of each justice explains the full vetting that each candidate should undergo, and the verbal flayings that some candidates have endured. Still, the confirmation process and final vote varies widely. Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy were unanimously confirmed (98-0 and 97-0), while the Senate was most divided on Clarence Thomas (52-48), followed closely by Samuel Alito (58-42). Of the liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg faced the least opposition (96-3), and Elena Kagan faced the most (63-37). And, of course, we’re speaking only of those candidates who survived the potential borking.

The heterogeneity of the court extends further than ideology or vetting intensity. The justices range in age from 52 to 79, with an average age of 66. The most recent addition to the Court is also the youngest of all time: Elena Kagan, who is 52 years old. The two most elderly justices are Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, from the further ends of the ideological divide.

Another distinguishing factor are the justices’ religious views. The current justices are either Roman Catholic or Jewish, with a 6-3 split. Three of the four liberal justices are Jewish, and all of the more conservative justices in addition to Sonia Sotomayor are Roman Catholic.

All of the individual traits and choices of the justices—their upbringing, ideologies, etc.—impact their decisions in small and large ways. Hearing their interpretations of the Constitution as it pertains to some of the most pressing issues of our day is nerve-racking because we know every human, regardless of how well-educated, well-informed, or well-intentioned, is fallible.

We champion some justices and question others. We wonder just how flexible or forthright each justice will prove to be. In the midst of it all we can see the wisdom of our Founders in entrusting this power to a panel of justices instead of a single, omnipotent Supreme Court Justice. May this Court and every ensuing Court recognize and uphold the letter and the spirit of our highest law.

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June 26, 2012 by Hannah

Illinois Review Interviews State Senate Candidate John Bambenek

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

Illinois Review recently interviewed John Bambenek, a conservative Republican candidate running for the 52nd State Senate district which stretches from Champaign to Danville.

Where did you grow up and what do you do for a living?

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, in Oak Grove. I moved to the University of Illinois for college and that’s where I met my wife and never left. I’ve been in Champaign for seventeen years. Professionally I do electronic fraud prevention, so essentially I deal with Russian hackers trying to steal your credit card and bank account information.

How did you decide to run for State Senate?

I’ve been active in politics for a while, most actively since I’ve had children and seen the direction of the state in terms of its ever-increasing tax burden, debt burden, and the amount of jobs and opportunities leaving the state. I’m much more conscious as to what kind of future my children will have. With this status quo, they won’t have the kind of opportunities I’ve had, and as a father that’s not really acceptable to me. The way to change that is to change the people who are there.

Speaking of economic opportunities, I’m thinking of the number of graduates coming out from the Urbana-Champaign campus in your district. How would having you as a State Senator affect the students from that campus?

I think it would provide them the opportunities to, when they graduate, find jobs in Illinois. Right now, an overwhelming majority of U of I graduates end up in other states with their first jobs. And increasingly we see recent graduates, a higher percentage than at least in recent history, unable to find their first job after graduation. Sometimes it takes upwards of two or three years to get their first opportunity after getting a degree. All of the time the student loans are pending repayment. So first and foremost is economic opportunity.

But the state currently owes the University of Illinois about $400 million. The only reason that that is so–the only reason–is because legislators have spent more money than we’ve had. The state obviously can’t print money, so what they’ve done is delay bills. [It’s telling agencies]: “Well, the state’s out of money this fiscal year. We’re going to have to pay you in next fiscal year–and you can expect a five-month delay.”

That’s just a basic failure in budgeting, by spending more money than we have. That pressure has increased tuition fees, it’s created various problems with University employment, and I think just getting that under control will alleviate a large amount of financial pressure on the University of Illinois. At least they can be confident that the number they are budgeted is actually the number they’re going to get. And nobody has that confidence today.

On your website you talk about reducing the corruption and dysfunction in Springfield. This definitely sounds like one of the issues you care about. What are some of the other issues you want to see changed?

Obviously, in part, corruption is a fiscal issue. There are various estimates of how much money has been lost due to corruption, whether it was Blagojevich, George Ryan, or corruption that is still ongoing. There is certainly an indication that a lot of state business, how the state contracts services and how people are paid, tends to be more on who you know, so obviously that’s a big issue. The financial issues are what everybody’s focusing on right now. Between the state budget, state debt, and other bills, that feeds into the general jobs climate. Businesses see our pension debt, the continuing growth of Medicaid, the past two bills, and the income tax hike that was passed in the middle of the night last year. They’re wondering what’s next in terms of how they’re going to be hit to pay those bills, based on bad decisions made over the past few years and decades. That lack of economic certainty is the biggest prohibitor of job growth in Illinois. Businesses say, “Well, I can grow jobs here in Indiana,“ because in Indiana they know what the next five years is going to hold for the most part, as much as you can know. With Illinois, every year’s a struggle in terms of “What’s next?”

We need to create a stable economic climate in Illinois so businesses can feel free to invest here, and know what they’re getting into.

Do you think that what just happened in Wisconsin with Scott Walker has broader implications in Illinois as well?

I certainly think so. Obviously, he approached some of the problems they were facing in a particular way and some of the excesses there, and I think the first major indication you’re going to see is that Wisconsin now appears to be in play for the presidential race. A lot of resources were spent in Wisconsin and essentially the election results on election night in 2010 when Scott Walker won were about the same, percentage-wise, as the recall. So nothing really moved in terms of where the voter disposition was in Wisconsin. But I think those are the questions that will be sorted out at the ballot box, in terms of which economic and policy vision the voters in Illinois, the Midwest at large, and the voters nationally want. That’s what this November election is going to come down to.

I just saw one of your recent tweets where you’re talking about 43% of local Illinois governments ignoring Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. This is another example of a choice between visions: is this acceptable or do we need more transparency, not just a promise, but it actually being delivered on. From that tweet, what could be a change on that specific issue?

I think you mentioned it: transparency’s one thing, but the question is accountability, or probably more accurately, enforceability. The FOIA law on the books says the government must disclose acts. Well, what if they don’t? There’s no real penalties or teeth in the law. I’ll give you another example. There’s the Open Meetings Act, where governing bodies need to do their deliberations, policy decisions, and lawmaking in public. That law has criminal sanctions, that if your city council passes a budget, but does it privately and doesn’t let anyone know about it, that’s actually a criminal act and someone can go to jail. Now on the flipside of that, there hasn’t been a prosecution of that since the 70’s, as I understand it, and there’ve certainly been Open Meetings Act violations since then. The question comes as a question of enforceability. To make that be disclosed, you can go to court, spend thousands in legal fees, tell the judge to issue a court order, and that court order comes with sanctions if they don’t comply with the court order. But probably what we need to get to is where these officials who are denying these requests are held personally accountable for frivolous denials. I mean, ignoring FOIA requests is flagrant, and the fact that we have it at that level shows that we really need to put some teeth in this—some enforceability—and that the FOIA reform of two years ago didn’t go far enough.

In the idea of holding someone personally responsible, what are actions that your opponent Mike Frerichs has taken that you think he should be held personally accountable for?

Ultimately, it’s just policy decisions that voters can weigh in on at the ballot box. He was certainly a supporter of the massive income tax increase last year, and he is by-and-large a supporter of almost every tax increase that has ever come before the General Assembly, including the gross receipts tax. A couple of months ago he had a press conference, again calling for a Constitutional Amendment to make it easier to hike taxes. His policy ideas with the budget problems tend to overemphasize tax increases versus spending reductions. So I certainly think that that will be a big issue: his vote on Workers’ Compensation Reform, or I should say his lack of vote on comprehensive workers’ comp. There was a bill in front of the Senate. Essentially, if you get a workers’ comp, you have to prove your injury was actually related to your job. Whereas now, you just have to basically be injured. You can hurt your back doing handstands at a weekend BBQ and essentially you can get a comp claim now. Well, that’s obviously a problem.

He voted present when that bill came to the floor. Well, when you talk to businesses, particularly manufacturers, on why they don’t locate in Illinois, it’s always workers’ compensation costs. So this is a very big, competitive disadvantage because of our system, where you can get a worker’s comp claim and pay, but don’t actually have to prove that your injury had anything to do with your job. Well, common sense would dictate that that’s a problem. He voted present on that, and that I would hold as a failure of leadership. I mean, take a stand on the big issues. Yes or no, we can have a discussion. Voting present is just hiding.

A number of issues like that are related to jobs and taxes, and there’ll be those kinds of policy differentiations.

You’re talking about these competing visions, between taxing and spending more, or making actual cuts. You’re going door-to-door and talking with voters. As you bring up your vision of policy changes, what kind of feedback are you getting?

Well, it’s generally very positive right now. Voters are generally just angry. Usually the first question I get is, “Is this your first time running, or are you there now?” They hear I’m the challenger and then they’re supportive. They’re just angry at everybody because, in fairness, both parties have a share in the blame and that’s how the state’s where it is. We need new leadership that comes with a fresh perspective to say, “No, really, we can’t continue on the path we’re going down.” So with that particular question, sometimes we don’t even get to a policy discussion. They’re like, “You’re not there now? OK, I’ll support you.” But people are aggravated about taxes, and they get aggravated about jobs. They’re looking for somebody that will bring order to the state’s finances, get our debt paid down and paid off, and then cut taxes and do things to bring jobs back to the district and to the state.

Would you say there’s any experience you’ve had in running your own business that will play into how you will work things as a state senator?

I think there’s two things. What anybody’s who’s started a business kind of understands is that there needs to be up-front investment and up-front costs. One of my staff members, for instance, is starting a fitness business and he looked at the states where he could locate it. He ultimately decided on Texas because he could either do it in Illinois or in Texas. If he did it in Texas, he would save $35,000 a year in costs just associated with being in Illinois compared to Texas. Every three years he can start a new studio and create the according level of jobs. Looking at that, that’s a competitive disadvantage with other states. When you start a business you kind of understand you’re competing with other people and you have to have something that they don’t. The reality is, in the modern economic climate we find ourselves in, we are competing with all fifty states, and for that matter, every country in the world for the most part, for jobs and for these businesses. So we can either create a competitive package of all the resources we have, or we can not do that and watch other states win out on these companies, where we lose. And the reality is, Illinois has a lot of natural advantages, which is keeping things from being worse than what they could be. We’re an essential transportation hub for the country; we have a very vibrant transportation industry. We have good soil; we have great agriculture here. We can capitalize on those things, fix our bad policy decisions, and bring jobs back very, very quickly.

What kind of timeframe—saying you were able to address some of these policy changes—what kind of timeframe are you looking at?

Well, to be honest, if I was elected, on day one I’m going to start introducing legislation to accomplish that. There’s really no sense in waiting on some of these issues. We need to fix our budget issues now. We need to fix our backlogged bills now. We need to reduce the tax burden on our working families and small businesses now. As far as I’m concerned, if I was elected, November 6 is Election Day, November 7 I’ll rest, November 8 I’ll start getting to work on crafting those legislative packages to move the ball forward. Now I’m not going to get anything passed on Inauguration Day in January, but introducing legislation is the first step to beginning those discussions, beginning those debates, and trying to move the ball forward.

If folks are interested on hearing more on where you stand on the issues, where can they go?

My website is johnbambenek.com and for any issues that aren’t on the website, just contact us through the contact form.

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June 22, 2012 by Hannah

Did the Founding Fathers Care about the Unborn?

The following was originally published on the Howard County Right to Life blog.

On January 22, 2012, community members from across Howard County gathered at the courthouse in Kokomo, Indiana to remember the unborn children claimed by abortion. Mr. Bill Federer, a historian, author, and President of Amerisearch, spoke about the Christian roots of our nation and the God-given mandate to care for all humans.

Mr. Federer began with a look at the changes in America over the last three decades: “I look at the Scriptures: Deuteronomy 28. It says, ‘These are the blessings if a nation hearkens to the voice of the Lord. They will be a lender and not a debtor. And these are the curses if a nation does not hearken to the voice of the Lord: they will be a debtor and a stranger amongst them will rise up and be their ruler.’

“Do you realize in the last thirty years America has gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation? We are the most in-debt nation in world history. So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the judgement side of the page.

“What has happened in the last thirty years? Well, we have aborted millions of children. And the same thing that God told Cain [applies today]: ‘Your brother Abel’s innocent blood cries out from the ground.’ There’s a cry that’s going up to Heaven and I believe that what’s staying the hand of judgement is us: is you and me, here.”

He then looked back at the U.S. during the days of slavery, when we were also under judgement. Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address, said:

“Fondly we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s 250 years of unrequited toil should be sunk and every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be repaid by a drop of blood drawn by the sword, let it be said: The judgements of the Lord are altogether true and righteous.”

As Mr. Federer pointed out, “Here’s Lincoln. He had the audacity to connect the judgement of the war with the sin of slavery. Is anybody going to connect the dots today?”

History provides more than cautionary tales, however. Mr. Federer relates how President Lincoln lead a national day of fasting and praying, and three days later the course of the Civil War was staggeringly altered.

This course is open to us today: “You are here because you’re stirred in your heart to leave your nice, warm home and come here and stand in the cold because there’s something burning on the inside of you: a flame that’s strong that says I’ve got to do something for our country.”

“I was with Alan Keyes last week. We were talking about the Constitution and he explained that the judge that gave the Roe v. Wade decision said if it could ever be proved that the unborn are considered by our Constitution to be citizens, then this decision is void. And Alan Keyes says, ‘I found it. I found where the unborn are mentioned in our Constitution.’

“I said, ‘Wow! Where?'”

“He says, ‘In the Preamble. It says, “To secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, we establish this Constitution.”‘

“Posterity. What’s posterity? Well, those are your descendants that you’ll never meet. Well, if you’re going to care about these descendants that are generations in the future, you’re going to care about the ones that are just one generation in the future. You’re going to care about the ones that are right there in the womb about to be the next generation in the future. You’re going to care about the unborn.

“Our Founders sacrificed their prosperity for their posterity. They pledged their lives and their fortunes and their sacred honor for a generation yet unborn. Today our government is doing the opposite. We’re sacrificing our posterity for prosperity, saddling the unborn with an unpayable debt–besides killing the unborn.

“George Washington, in 1776, stands before his army and he says, “The fate of unborn millions now depends on the courage of this army. We have to resolve therefore to either conquer or die.”

Though the lives of heroes loom large above our mind’s eye, Mr. Federer reminded the crowd assembled that God has placed them here on earth at this time for a reason, and thought forward to the day when our lives are over and we’re listening to the heroes of the Bible tell their life stories.

“One by one, Gideon, the Apostle Paul, and Deborah–all of them [are going to tell their stories]–and then everybody’s going to look at you and say, ‘You: we haven’t heard from you yet! What did you do when it was your turn to be on earth? Tell us what was going on… all the courage and faith you had to stand against injustice and [stand] up for righteousness.’

“Y’know, I don’t want to squirm in my seat and say, ‘Uh, can you call on someone else for a minute and let me think about this?’

“No, I want to say, ‘Let me tell you what they were doing! They were killing babies, they were changing marriage, they were doing everything and I said I’m going to stand up. I don’t know all the stuff they know. I just have my little sling. I’m just going to let the Lord use me.’ Y’know, if anybody’s around when I die, I’ll tell them to put on my gravestone, ‘Not ability, but availability.’ Y’know, you make yourself available and the Lord’ll add the ability. So I look forward to the day that we’re all up there and you get to tell your story and we’ll remember together being here this day.”

For more information about the events at the rally, see this article by Splash!Kokomo. For more of Mr. Federer’s research into the history, see www.americanminute.com.

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June 21, 2012 by Hannah

The Fallout of Lesbian Motherhood

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

One children’s book proclaims, “Heather Has Two Mommies,” but an updated edition could read, “Heather Has Two Mommies, an Increased Chance of Depending on Welfare, Being Forced to Have Sex, and Being Less than 100% Heterosexual.”

This is the legacy of lesbian motherhood as shown in the recent study “How Different are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” written by Dr. Mark Regnerus and published in the journal of Social Science Research on June 10.

Dr. Regnerus compiled data from over 3000 American adult children aged 18 to 39 from a variety of households and analyzed 40 major questions. While other studies on heterosexual and homosexual parents have focused on data from children, with parents answering questions, he decided to interview adults because they could speak for themselves.

The summary generated by the Washington Times is shown below:

There are distinct differences in children raised by heterosexual parents and those raised by lesbian mothers. Not only are children of lesbians more likely to grow up dependent on public assistance, they are also more likely to continue this dependence into adulthood and be under- or unemployed. Even more seriously, such children are more likely to be abused sexually and commit adultery as adults.

Not every child raised by lesbians follows the overall pattern, but when it comes to probabilities, the study concludes that “children appear most apt to succeed well as adults—on multiple counts and across a variety of domains—when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day.”

Previous studies have showed either no difference between children raised in homosexual or heterosexual families, or even a benefit to children raised in homosexual families. Dr. Regnerus points out that many earlier studies suffered from small sample sizes and “convenience bias,” with respondents recruited from privileged venues such as lesbian events and women’s bookstores. Dr. Regnerus, by contrast, sampled more people from a wider swathe of the population using a method similar to that of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have been quick to take issue with Dr. Regnerus’s study, claiming that his methods were flawed because he did not account for family transitions and that his conclusions disagree with common knowledge.

The common knowledge truly challenged, however, is the carefully crafted image of a committed pair of homosexuals deciding to bring children into their home. Not every homosexual who decides to adopt is in a committed, long-term relationship. Also, there are variations in how a child comes to a homosexual family. Every monogamous homosexual couple is infertile, but can participate in artificial insemination, surrogacy, or adoption if they decide to add children to their home. These methods are becoming more common in younger homosexual families, but many of today’s adult children of homosexual parents were the products of dissolved heterosexual unions.

In a recent Daily Texan article, a lesbian mother criticizing Dr. Regnerus mentions in passing that her children were the product of a heterosexual marriage, that she had multiple lesbian relationships, and has only been in her current lesbian relationship for three years. For her children and others like them, a family transition was how they joined the family and is thus impossible to exclude from the results.

This study’s findings about children raised by lesbian parents is challenging many established notions and demonstrating the importance of moving beyond the results of a few select families to the broad-based results from average families. In the end, the fundamental question is not over Dr. Regnerus’s methodology, but over the rapidity in which lesbian adoption is being accepted. Homosexual parenting is a new social experiment with broad implications ethically, politically, and economically.

Going forward, parents and policy makers should heed Dr. Regnerus’ concluding words of caution: “Insofar as the share of intact, biological mother/father families continues to shrink in the United States, as it has, this portends growing challenges within families, but also heightened dependence on public health organizations, federal and state public assistance, psychotherapeutic resources, substance use programs, and the criminal justice system.”

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June 18, 2012 by Hannah

Meet IR Intern Hannah Ihms

The following article was originally published by Illinois Review.

When I read the obituary of the mainstream media, I won’t shed a tear. If you ask me, it’s high time. Even on life-support, huddled in its self-spun shroud of objectivity, the mainstream media is wheezing out lies about those it hates. Those counting on its institutionalized libel are panicking, but I’m excited.They may embalm the mainstream media, Lenin-style, but we conservatives won’t be visiting the casket. We’ve already celebrated the christening of the New Media.

Illinois Review is on this action, and I’m excited to be interning with IR this summer!

Conservatism grounded on Judeo-Christianity stands as a pillar among the intellectual ruins of its alternatives. It offers a framework to build upon, instead of scorched earth to sift through. It also liberates. Instead of teaching us to accept or even celebrate skyrocketing debt, the erosion of the family, and flammable Chevy Volts, conservatism proves that these are cruel parodies of the way things ought to be.

While I’ve been a Republican since I was in utero, it wasn’t until I read Goldwater’s book “The Conscience of a Conservative” that I realized I was a conservative. He put what I knew to be true into words, and started me on a journey to trace the roots of conservatism. Bill Buckley, Jr., Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the Founders have been invaluable friends along the way.

This all took place while I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I joined the Illini Conservative Union, and was incredibly blessed to find other students intent on upholding the Constitution and standing up for the rights and responsibilities of every person. Through campus activism, we met Leftism head to head, and had fun doing it.

Through this internship with Illinois Review, I’m ready to continue the proud tradition of taking conservative ideas to the streets.

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December 8, 2011 by Hannah

The Other 101

Illinois State Representatives Bill Mitchell and Adam Brown have introduced a bill to divide Illinois into two states, jettisoning Chicago. Their reasoning is that Chicago’s politics are wholly different from that of the rest of the state, and it’s time to free downstate Illinois from its burden.

As a stranger in a strange land, I can understand the sentiment. But I’d like to make a slightly more modest proposal: Illinois should establish a state electoral college.

This idea comes from one of my friends, and the more I think about it, the more sense it makes, because federalism runs deep. The U.S. electoral college was established in the Presidential race to retain states’ rights, and an Illinois electoral college would achieve the same goal, for counties.

Each county could be assigned a number of delegates proportional to its citizens. Then, in a state-wide election, votes would be tallied by county as usual, but the candidate with the most votes in that county would secure its delegates. These delegates would assemble to vote, and their decision would be the state’s choice.

A state electoral college has two significant advantages over our current system. First, it would improve the representation by county. Currently, less densely populated counties’ voices are drowned in the cacophony from Chicago. If the President was elected by popular vote totals instead of by the electoral college, no candidate would spend much time outside of population epicenters, unless it was a photo-op to reassure smalltown voters they still mattered. This is what is currently happening on the state level. A state electoral college, by contrast, would scale back the power of any one county, and allow other counties to participate more reasonably in the political process. Knowing that these counties had more authority would require candidates to respond to the concerns of all their potential constituents, and craft policy that appealed to a broader base of people.

Secondly, it would make election fraud more difficult. Our current, centralized political environment has bred the Chicago Machine. If, however, political power was diffused to all Illinois counties, election fraud would be much more difficult logistically. Instead of only needing to sweep elections in one county to win an election, the delegates from multiple counties would need to be secured.

A state electoral college could decentralize political power in this state, and encourage people from across Illinois to participate in the political process. Because their county would again have a voice!

in Politics 0 comments

September 25, 2011 by Hannah

Non Discrimination: Lead by Example

While re-registering for this coming school year, I found myself carefully reading the statement of Non-Discrimination:

“The commitment of the University to the most fundamental principles of academic freedom, equality of opportunity, and human dignity requires that decisions involving students and employees be based on individual merit and be free from invidious discrimination in all its forms, whether or not specifically prohibited by law.

“It is the policy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that registered organizations shall be in full compliance with all federal and state nondiscrimination and equal opportunity laws, orders, and regulations. Registered organizations shall not practice discrimination against a member or prospective member on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, disability, unfavorable discharge from the military, or status as a disabled veteran or veteran of the Vietnam era, except as specifically exempted by law. Among the forms of invidious discrimination prohibited by University policy but not law is sexual orientation. The official name of a registered organization shall not be construed or interpreted as denying open membership or prohibiting participation in any program or activity. Each registered organization must agree to the Pledge of Nondiscrimination when applying for registered organization status.

“Registration is dependent upon the organization’s compliance with the above Article, and all conditions of the Student Code. By signifying you agree with this document, the authorized agents of the named Registered Organization agree to abide by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Student Code, and to have the organization adhere to the Student Code.”

Student Code: Article 2 – General Policies and Regulations

Part 3. Registered Organizations and Organization Fund

I, of course, agree with this statement and had no problem signing it. What I found striking, however, was that the University takes such pains to ensure that we as students do not discriminate, while school administrators use “positive” discrimination to ensure diversity in the classroom. It’s time to stop the absurdity. Let’s all treat students as individuals, not as members of this or that class. On non-discrimination, it’s time for the University to lead by example.

in Education / Politics 0 comments

August 16, 2011 by Hannah

My Own Debt Ceiling

All this debate about the debt ceiling has brought the topic of money up close and personal. But that’s a good thing. This summer as I’ve struggled to get my own financial house in order, I’ve learned some things I’d like to pass on to my friends in Congress.

#1) Be honest with yourself about your spending problem.
As a kid, I was a saver. My mom and dad had given me a bank with different divisions for church, bank, store, and I dutifully split my life savings and bitsy income between them. Throughout college, the little bit of money I made went into textbooks and art supplies, and I was happy. The last thing I ever thought I’d struggle with was overspending. When grad school came, for the first time in my life I had a real paycheck. My first few years I lived frugally, shopping at ALDI, spending literally nothing on clothes or decorations, donating a bit, and chiefly eating Raman noodles and bean burritos. But then I realized I had money left over. Gradually, I became accustomed to buying pretty much whatever I wanted: first small things (a nice shower curtain), later large things (a nice camera with accessories). I never looked at how my rate of spending of was increasing and my appreciation of stuff was decreasing; I just did what I wanted. Gradually, I fell into a disturbing pattern of spending binges and purges. I’d declare a “need” that took precedent over everything else, and go on a book or poster-buying spree. Then I’d “purge” as penance for overspending by subsisting on canned food instead of buying fresh groceries. Then reality began to dawn. This spring I started listening to Dave Ramsey. Based on my spending habits, I started hearing myself in the callers to his program. I wasn’t the caller yelling “We’re debt free” with my husband, five kids, and family dog; I was the caller swamped with $300,000 in credit card debt and a foreclosed home. The day I woke up to this, I realized my spending pattern wasn’t just unhealthy, it was stupid! I was no longer the saver I used to be; it was time to rein in the spender I’d become.

#2) Say yes to a budget; say yes to sanity.
When it comes to shopping, I seem to be the world’s worst combination of extremes. After endlessly vacillating between two choices, I impulse buy… both. Yeah. Not proud of that. But y’know what I’ve learned? A budget does wonders at focusing the mind. Some things got cut completely. Other things remained, but were given an explicit allotment of funds. Everything was scrutinized, and for the first time I realized how much of my money was going to completely indefensible ends. Once I recognized that there would always be more opportunities than cash, and honestly distinguished between what I needed to live and what I thought I needed to live, life became much simpler. The word “no” reentered my vocabulary, and peace was restored to its throne. I set aside a fixed amount for each activity I deemed worthy of putting money toward, and the thrill of the chase began. Shopping was no longer a paralyzing matter of finding that perfect widget at any cost. It was an energizing matter of finding an OK widget within my budgeted cost. I regained sanity.

#3) Limit the time you spend offering yourself things.
The more offers you get to buy something you don’t need, the more times you’ll have to say no. While I was getting better at saying no, I wasn’t perfect yet. And I realized that an offer to buy something often set my mind down a spending track even if I said no to the offer at hand. When clearing out my email inbox, I realized for the first time how many marketing spamlists I was on. I started to see these emails for what they were: offers I not only needed to decline, but offers I needed to stop subjecting myself to. For years I’d been reading and deleting these things. I just plain needed to unsubscribe! So I did. I thought about other temptations to spend. Instead of looking forward to the next “Dividend Dollar” check from my bank, I decided to try to keep my dollars in the bank instead of trying to “win” them back by overspending. I decided to turn my radio down whenever commercials for things I didn’t need came on. I realized that my credit card inflated my sense of wealth, and cold turkey, switched to a debit card. I relearned the joy of paying for something once, and never needing to pay another bill.

#4) Surround yourself with lifesavers.
Do your friends ever pressure you to spend more than you think you should? Or do they impress you with their feats of coupon prowess? Subtly and overtly, we are influenced by the people and media around us. As a recovering shopaholic, I’m trying to learn from people who put money and possessions on the right priority plane. That is, they’re not skinflints making their own dental floss, but they’re also not trinketjocks flaunting the latest whizbang. They show me by example that living withing their means isn’t an exercise in futility, but a series of tradeoffs that ultimately leads to contentment.

You may wonder how my list could possibly help Congress. Here’s how. Washington has become too comfortable with overspending and debt. You don’t have to be Jabba the Hutt to be obese, and instead of comparing ourselves to Greece and Ireland, Congress needs to own up to its own burgeoning spending problem. Besides, debt makes us a slave to our debt-holders, and the sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can get on the path to fiscal sanity. We’ve got to distinguish between national expenditures that are actual needs (defense) and others that are not only wants, but unconstitutional wants (welfare). Instead of avoiding even the construction of a budget for years on end, Congress must consistently make–and follow–a realistically cost-cutting budget. Instead of maxing out its federal credit card, Congress must seek to decrease its debt and reclaim the financial security only solvency ensures. Everything must be weighed against the Constitution. Strict priorities must be established, and money must be allotted according to these priorities. If the money runs out before the wants get taken care of, the wants get eliminated. Instead of debating new ways to spend money, Congressmen must try to outdo one another by advancing new ideas of cutbacks. Finally, if Congress is going to beat its spending habit, Congressmen must seek out others who value thrift. This is no time to be buddying up with spendthrift Congressmen; we’ll vote out as many of them as we can, but in the meantime, shore up your newfound fiscal sanity by listening to Dave Ramsey.
This four-point plan took a lot of pain, mirth, embarrassment, and rejoicing, but it worked for me, and I know it can work for this great country.

in Economics / Politics 0 comments

August 14, 2011 by Hannah

9/11: Ten Years Later

Where were you when the Twin Towers were attacked? I was playing music on my keyboard in my room when my mom urgently called me downstairs. My mom, sister and I watched the breaking news on TV: a building in New York City had been hit by a plane and had caught on fire. Smoke and flames were billowing from its side, and the commentators were speculating on its structural integrity and the safety of the buildings surrounding it. I was absolutely confused: what were these Twin Towers? What had caused the plane to crash?

Then the second tower was attacked. The whole dynamic changed. This was no freak accident. You could come up with a hundred explanations for how one plane could spiral out of control, but two, on the same day, in the same location? It was impossible.

Fear and uncertainty swirled in my brain. Who could possibly have done this? And why?

Then I thought about the people inside the buildings. In my naivete, I truly believed everyone was evacuating the building as we watched. After all, I lived in rural Indiana, and the largest building I’d ever been would hardly have taken more than 10 minutes to clear. The reality didn’t sink in until I saw people jumping from the buildings. In a moment my horror that these people would commit suicide instead of evacuating was replaced by the realization that they were taking the last desperate chance available to them.

Thinking back through the events of that day, I’m struck by how absolutely unprepared we were. American children today have grown up with TSA restrictions, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and most of all an awareness of the hatred many Islamists have for their country and for them. By contrast, I was born during a time of peace. When my family flew, friends and family could accompany us to the boarding gate. I never had even heard the word “terrorist” until 9/11, and I thought everyone loved America.

Our national naivete played directly into the hands of the Islamists who meant us harm. We never imagined that anyone would want to use our transportation system against us, or would be willing to brutally use planeloads of innocent men, women, and children to murder their fellows.

Yet even amid the tragedy of 9/11, the mercy of God stands in bold relief. Not every plane struck its target that day. As the Islamists lost their element of surprise, quick-thinking men such as Todd Beamer were able to subvert their plans.

Yet the loss of life is staggering. 2,996 people died that day: 19 murderers and their 2,977 victims. All the victims were civilians except for 55 Pentagon personnel. The victims on the planes were taken by surprise, and were conscripted into a plan of terror that no sane person could ever have anticipated.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, let us remember those who lost their lives in the attacks on the Twin Towers. Let us also remember all those who have sacrificed their lives to defend our great nation in the days since 9/11.

May the God of all comfort comfort us in our time of need, and encourage us in our fight against Islamism.

in History / Politics 0 comments

October 13, 2010 by Hannah

Our Generation’s Pearl Harbor

On October 13, 2010, Middle east scholar Dr. Daniel Pipes gave a speech entitled “Does the War on Terror Still Exist?” at Foellinger Auditorium on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. I had the honor of introducing him.

Good evening! Thank you for coming! My name is Hannah Ihms, and I’m president of the campus club the Illini Conservative Union. This club is only one of the many organizations and individuals that made this event possible, including Stand With Us, the David Project, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Hillel Foundation at the University of Illinois, the Chabad Jewish Center at the University of Illinois & Champaign-Urbana, the American-Israeli Student Coalition, Great News Radio, and the Orange and Blue Observer. In addition, I want to especially thank Tahli Hanuka, Tali Segev, and Erez Cohen for their dedication and hard work at all stages of this event.

In a moment Dr. Daniel Pipes will share with us his insights after years of academic research. As students we all respect the freedom of speech and the right for academic freedom. Therefore we expect that Dr. Pipes will be given a stage with no interruptions. Following his formal lecture, there will be time for questions-and-answers. Every respectful question will be greeted with a respectful answer.

9/11 was our generation’s Pearl Harbor. It opened our eyes to something that our friends in Israel, Iran, and other countries had known for years. Today we can say with certainty that our lives have been altered by radical Islam. That’s why each of us has a stake in this talk tonight. There’s questions we need to raise, and answer.

Tonight, an expert on the Middle East will be joining us in answering some of these questions. Dr. Pipes has devoted his entire adult life to researching Middle Eastern issues. He studied Arabic in Cairo, and obtained his Ph.D. in Medieval Islamic History from Cambridge about the time that Ayatollah Khomeini was rising to power in Iran.

His understanding of the motives behind the headlines has helped him analyze events that others find mystifying. Dr. Pipes has addressed audiences across the world, and has taught at the Naval War College, the University of Chicago, and Harvard, as well as serving at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Today he directs the Middle East Forum, a thinktank he founded. He also oversees Campus Watch, a project that critiques work published by North American Middle East departments.

He carefully distinguishes between moderate Islam and radical Islam, and with his lifetime acquaintance with this topic, he is uniquely qualified to guide us in our pursuit of truth.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Daniel Pipes.

in Ethics / Politics 0 comments

May 28, 2010 by Hannah

Armed and Dangerous: 2010 KASH Graduation Speech

On May 28, 2010 I was one of several homeschool alumni to address the Kokomo Area Schools at Home (KASH) graduates in Kokomo, Indiana. This was the speech I prepared.

Good evening! It’s great to be back in Kokomo. I want to extend a huge thank you to the KASH Leadership for inviting me to speak here tonight. Parents, graduates, family, and friends, it is an honor to celebrate with you!

Graduates,
the cap and gown you’re wearing tonight highlight your achievements, unite you with others in your graduating class, and make for some great graduation pictures.

Tonight in addition to your cap and gown I’m sure that many of you are also wearing…

A belt of truth
A breastplate of righteousness
Sandals of readiness
A shield of faith
A helmet of salvation
The sword of the Spirit

You’re wearing them because there’s a war happening tonight, and none of us are off-duty.

People are being imprisoned, and some are defecting to the Enemy. This war is taking place in the spiritual realm–possibly even in your mind right now. It’s the war of worldviews.

Let’s map the field of battle. It starts with a question:

What’s secular and what’s sacred?

I have a list of 10 subjects. If you would, please count the number that are secular:

Politics
History
Economics
Theology
Psychology
Sociology
Biology
Philosophy
Ethics
Law

OK. That’s the list. Were all 10 secular? No? Nine? Eight? Five? One?

If you said today that all ten of these subjects were sacred, I’d agree with you. I’ll tell you why:

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that’s in it.” (Psalm 24:1)

Everything–Politics, history, economics, theology–it’s all His.

God put it all under Jesus’ feet. In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to Him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to Him.” (Hebrews 2:6-8)

OK–so why then is there a war?

Right now the earth is being claimed by a tin-pot dicator named Satan. But Jesus Christ has a prior claim on this earth and everything in it. First, He created it. Then, He fought and died to save it from the sin we unleashed on it. Soon He’ll be coming back to claim it.

That raises a question. What’s Jesus waiting for?

Glad you asked. Consider 2 Peter 3:2-15.

“In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” [Sound likes some good evolutionary theory!]

“But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” [AHA! That’s why He’s waiting–so people can repent!]

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.” [Another reminder of why we’re here.]

Jesus is patiently waiting for the final invasion because God in His mercy is allowing as many as possible to freely come to Him before the Last Judgment.

What’s our job?

As soldiers of Christ, we are reclaiming occupied ground, freeing captives from concentration camps, and inviting them to join us as we follow our Master. “

Here’s how Jesus put it:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

OK–so why is there a battle?

Because Satan is claiming everything in this world as his. If we claim any ground as God’s, Satan goes into a howling frenzy.

Now, he’s shrewd. He plans his attacks systematically. Right now he’s sowing several myths into Christian circles.

Christians are stepping away from the truth and trying to compromise with the world. They’re questioning the accuracy of His Word, or the relevance of what He’s said. But the command we have from Scripture is: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

Myth #1: Being a Christian means dividing your brain in half.

The Truth: Being a Christian means devoting your whole self to Christ.

Satan tells us as Christians to distinguish between what’s sacred and secular. Sure, your Christian beliefs work in your Christian ghetto, with sacred topics, but when you move out into the world, you need to think with another part of your brain.

He’s convinced many of us that most of the world is his, and there’s only a few areas of life–the church, theology–that our Christian beliefs have any relevance. We’ve accepted the boundaries he’s artificially set for us because it makes life easier. If we stray into psychology, biology, or history, we often feel the need to genuflect to the ideas of men like Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, or Karl Marx.
What’s interesting, though, is that if you follow this model, it’s easy to begin to believe there’s no area where your Christian beliefs actually apply.

Evolution is a prime example. You may wonder why so many Christians are so vocal in their opposition to evolution. One reason is that it’s the foundation for every worldview except Biblical Christianity and Islam. (Islam, as you know, has its own flaws!).

Christian ideas are often ridiculed by popular icons, and no one likes to feel alienated. Satan can reinforce our reluctance to apply our Christianity to all parts of our life by confronting us with this type of opposition:

If we say biology is God’s? (He cries “evolution!”)
Sociology is God’s? (He cries “same-sex marriage!”)
Ethics is God’s? (He cries “if it feels good, do it!”)
Law is God’s? (He cries “everything’s relative!”)
and so it goes.

The movement of much of the church to regard life as “sacred” or “secular” has had profound effects.

In many ways the church is morally and ethically indistinguishable from the rest of the world.

How did this happen? We gave that ground over to Satan and found ourselves taken captive.

What have we been taken captive by? Hollow philosophies.
Sure, there’s some slight differences in the lies Satan tells different groups of people (that’s why there’s five major unchristian worldviews), but what they all share is a rejection of the absolute Truth of Scripture. And when they reject the Truth of Scripture they’re rejecting the Word-Made-Flesh–Jesus Christ.

Here are the five major worldviews beside Biblical Christianity:

Cosmic humanism (also called “New Age”) includes things like Hinduism and Bahai;
secular humanism is what many atheists believe; their catchphrase is “Man is the measure of all things”;
Marxism-Leninism is another atheist favorite, and its adherents are socialists/communists who believe it is necessary to change the world;
postmodernism (the worldivew other than Christianity that we’re probably the most familiar with: it’s pop psychology, “If you feel good, do it,” there is no absolute truth); and
Islam (the beliefs of Muslims recorded in the Quran).

2,000 years ago the church at Colosse was facing the same dilemma, of people falling away from Christ. Paul didn’t want them to be deceived by “fine-sounding arguments,” so he wrote to them with these words:

“…[J]ust as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” (Colossians 2:2-10)

What’s he saying? Jesus has already won–this is no time to be taken prisoner!!

Myth #2: Some portions of Scripture can’t be trusted.

The Truth: Scripture stands or falls as a unit.

The first recorded words out of Satan’s mouth were “Did God really say…?” And he’s still at it. He’s injecting doubt about core Christian beliefs of into many people’s lives.

If I as a Christian try to reconcile Christianity and evolution, something is going to have to give. You see, Scripture is written as a unit, and there’s an incredible number crosslinks in the book. If I decide to reject or explain away one part of Scripture, it’ll often require me to reject another part that crossreferences the original.

For example, if I decide to reject the literal creation week, I’ll need to rethink the fourth commandment, because it says the week we live out now is seven days because the first week was seven days.

If I reject the idea that death came through sin, it doesn’t make much sense to believe I need to be forgiven of my sin in order to have life.

If I decide to reject the idea of a literal First Adam, it doesn’t make much sense to believe in a literal Second Adam.

If I decide to reject the idea that “God created them male and female” and created marriage as just between one man and one woman, it doesn’t make much sense to think of Jesus coming back for a pure Bride in His church.

If I reject the idea of Jonah being swallowed by a fish for three days, it doesn’t make much sense to believe in a man who said that He’d give the sign of Jonah.
If I reject the idea that worldwide judgment once came through a flood, it doesn’t make much sense to believe God when He says there’ll be a second worldwide judgment by fire.

Talk of judgment brings us to the next myth:

Myth #3: Being a Christian means avoiding offense.

The Truth: Being a Christian means believing and living out Truth.

Let’s be honest: the concept of absolute truth is offensive.

Our culture is into custom everything.
Can’t I custom-fit my reality?
What’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for you?

We’re told that tolerance is the ultimate virtue. And the way that term is being used, it doesn’t mean “OK, so I know I’m right, but I’ll tolerate you even though you’re wrong.” It’s saying “There is no right answer. There is no ultimate, absolute truth. So your handle on reality is just as right (or just as wrong) as mine.”

Then comes Christ, with His ultimate truth claims. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” Ouch! “He who has the Son has life; He who does not have the Son does not have life.” Yikes! He’s so brutally honest!

Yes–because He knows the stakes involved. Christianity is a description of reality, and thus a description of Christ. So as postmodernism questions whether reality is knowable, it’s also questioning whether Christ is knowable.

If we go on believing that so much of this earth is “secular,” we’ve been conditioned to believe that delving into science or philosophy will cause us to separate from God.

But if we’re walking with Christ, it’s possible to see His reflection in all of these areas.

He brings continuity to the whole.

He was there at the beginning, shaping the world.
He’s here now, walking with us as our Savior and friend.
He will wrap up the world at the end of time.

Recognize then, that the current questioning of the truth of Scripture isn’t a personal attack on you or me. It’s a personal attack on Jesus Christ himself.

How can we avoid controversy when it’s controversial to say:

That God exists?
That there’s a difference between males and females? (For example, you are “just male,” or “just female,” not both?)
That marriage is a relationship between one (uno) man and one (uno) woman?)
That there’s a final exam at the end of life?

If you make it your goal to avoid controversy, I recommend that you take a vow of silence.

But remember–to God, nothing is controversial.

Myth #4: Being a Christian means going with the flow.

The Truth: Being a Christian means standing up for Christ.

Of course, as you fight the good fight, Satan’s going to pay attention. He can try to stop you by stealing your identity, either through success or failure.

You may find opposition from non-believers and other Christians.

But when the Holy Spirit asks you to take a stand, do it.

Often when we read the Bible, it’s easy to take it for granted that the hero’s going to make the right choice. But at the time, they didn’t know how the story was going to play out.

Think how different it would have been if Daniel had said: “Oh king, live forever. Can I play the zither while I bow to your idol?”

If Joshua had said: “As for me and my house, we’re gonna play it safe.”

If Noah had said: “God, I did a focus group with the neighbors and they’re all against the ark idea. Sorry, pal.”

If the Israeli midwives had said, “Pharaoh, sure we’ll help you. We’re making plans to start a Planned Parenthood in Goshen right now.

Because they didn’t say these things, but stood with God, they became heroes of the faith. Sometimes others were standing with them, but often they made individual decisions.

Our belief system is not about how we work our way to betterment (nirvana, etc.), but about how we rely on Christ for our very existence. When we come to Him, He gives us our identity. He defines us.

If you start dividing your time into what you’ll spend on God and what He has no business touching, you’ll quickly find the “God-time” shrinking. You might even start begrudging Him the time He “takes” out of your life. You’ll see God as something external to your life, a God who waltzes in at inopportune moments and demands stuff, or reminds you of things you’d rather not think of.
That’s not–to use a buzzword–sustainable. It’s all or nothing with God. Either we turn our back on Him, or we give Him everything.

It’s not just the things we like about ourselves that He’s asking for.
It’s all of us.
Complete surrender.
A living sacrifice.

You may see pronounced attacks on your mind.

You may be amazed by the perverse or anti-God thought that sometimes erupt in your mind when you try to do God’s will. Recognize that your heart is deceitful, but God is more powerful than any temptation or emotion. He will help you take that thought captive.

Jesus knew His life and our lives wouldn’t be easy

He reminds us that the point isn’t popularity:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)

The words He shared with His disciples the night He was betrayed show an awesome mix of encouragement and warning: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart–I have overcome the world.”

So I invite you to continue putting on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Ephesians 6:10-18)

in Politics / Science / Theology 0 comments

March 1, 2010 by Hannah

You Have to Be Green

There was a time when being green either meant you were inexperienced, from a different planet, eaten up with envy, or about to puke.

Times have changed. Today these negative connotations have been swallowed up by the green overgrowth of environmentalism. News broadcasters and Quad-chalkers use the term and all of us are supposed to buy in, fall in line, and trill our allegiance – often without full disclosure.

But after all, it’s so fresh, so clean, so GREEN to join! The genius in using such an ambiguous term is that it makes it fairly impossible to debate whether something is green or not.

Take the current Sustainable Campus Environment Fee. We’re told that it’s green, that it’s for sustainability, but we’re not even told what “it” is! Evidently, once the $14/per student is raked in (yes, I am looking for those agricultural terms), the campus will decide what to do with it. We should rest assured that it will, in fact be green.

Somehow, I think that taking this at face value would, indeed, prove our greenness (i.e. Merriam-Webster “green” definition 9a: “inexperience”). As any experienced shopper knows, details first, greenbacks later. If the Student Sustainability Committee can’t manage to describe the specifics of what the funds will be used for now, we have nothing to hold the committee accountable to later. I would describe this as one giant slush fund, but that doesn’t seem green enough. Let’s call it a swamp fund.

Here at UIUC it’s standard for even an RSO to itemize its financial needs, justifying its claim that it needs the money and detailing its anticipated use. Is it asking too much for this green initiative to at least live up to this standard?

Yes, I’m seeing red instead of green, but let me tell you why. A blank check for $14 may not seem like much (two Subway footlongs and a Coke), but think of the total amount this initiative represents. Our university website reports that there’s currently 31,173 undergrads and 10,322 graduate and professional students traipsing about the greening Quad. If all 41,495 students paid the $14 fee, that would amount to a total of $580,930 – over half a million dollars. And this is going to what? TBD.

So far, the only proven greenness of the measure is that it requires a substantial transfer of green from the private to the public sector. I say, make it opt-in. Give us the opportunity to prove our greenness, voluntarily.

in Free Market / Politics 0 comments

March 1, 2010 by Hannah

We Prefer Red Tape

in Humor / Politics 0 comments

March 1, 2010 by Hannah

Is It Just Me

in Humor / Politics 0 comments

March 1, 2010 by Hannah

I’m a Conservative

I’m a conservative. I don’t have to modify that noun with adjectives such as “compassionate,” “fiscal,” or “social.” I’m just a conservative. What I mean by that is that I have found certain truths that are worth conserving. Incidentally, they’re not only worth living by; they’re worth dying for. These truths guide my life and my interactions with everyone around me. The principal truth that guides my life is that God exists. He’s given me the triplicate gifts of life, liberty, and property, and He sent His Son to guide me in the best way to use these gifts – namely, so that I can be like Him.

A lot of people in a lot of different nations have discovered principles of prudential living, what some call the Tao. The reason why these principles form a coherent whole is that they flow from a common source: God. He created reality, invented the genders, the family, government, nations, and the principles that guide their peaceful relations. He embedded certain laws into His creation, to provide us with a stable, sustainable universe, and the means to trace our desire for meaning back to Him. For anyone who wants the low-down on why He set up the universe the way He did, He’s conveniently published a book on the subject.

Besides that, He’s placed a handbook of His laws in each of our hearts – something we call conscience, or the natural law. The real fun comes in seeing just how these laws play out in everyday life. The laws stay constant, but they have infinite ways of being lived out. While some may try to disregard God and attempt to redefine what a nation, government, family, or person is, I’ve found that such attempts end in failure, confusion, and tragedy. The truths that God instilled in creation remain unchanged, and as long as I keep Him and His truth in sight, life makes sense.

Yeah, that’s why I’m a conservative.

in Philosophy / Politics 0 comments

March 1, 2010 by Hannah

Hail to the Chief

What you don’t know can hurt you. Upper administrators, including Renee Romano, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and Richard Herman, former Chancellor here at UIUC did their best to block the registered student organization Students for Chief Illiniwek (SFCI) from sponsoring a “Next Dance” event featuring the former UIUC mascot. I know that the Chief has been a divisive issue on campus, but for a minute, think about the generalities of this case, and not its specifics.

While projecting the image of an “inclusive” campus, administrators clearly showed that they do not value freedom of speech when they disagree with the message. And that, my friends, is a sad state of affairs. You may or may not care beans about the mascot issue. But let me ask you this: have you seen the banners proclaiming “Student Affairs is Everywhere You Are?” If that’s true, and you have a message or event that student affairs doesn’t particularly want broadcasted, you may face the type of censorship that was narrowly avoided in this case. Kudos to those who filed a freedom-of-information act in the Chief case to see exactly what was going on behind the scenes.

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January 1, 2010 by Hannah

Bible Lessons for a PC Audience

Good morning, class! Today I’d like to tell you about six of our shining lights, six of the most important people you’ll ever hear about in this class, six people about whom you may of heard the most bold-faced lies!

David did not throw stones at a man named Goliath! He consulted his knowledgeable older brothers who were more acquainted with the situation. A detailed appraisal of the force his own party was up against quickly convinced him that a global economy is best served by getting beyond mere nationalistic concerns. He initiated peacetalks that culminated in a joyous resolution: the “ruler” of “Israel” (both terms were later recognized as hatespeech and were rejected by all in David’s party) rejected a show of arms. Instead, he fair-mindedly gave half of “his” land—including “his nation’s capital”—over to Goliath’s party of the Philistines.

Daniel was not thrown into a den of lions! Who told you that? He championed the rights of atheists to declare a “God-free month”! He even went so far as to show his open-mindedness by taking a break from his own Puritanical prayer schedule. At the end of the month, he was so free that he never went back! (And incidentally, his three best friends were never thrown into a fiery furnace! What bosh! The hottest thing they ever entered was a sauna! After showing their undying support for their king during a multimedia recognition extravaganza, his three friends initiated a “Do Ask, Do Tell” policy to report the minutest acts of insurrection directly to the king himself. Under their watch these plots decreased to the lowest levels of any recorded period. After their first experience at a public rally, they encouraged the king to hold them monthly. It’s never so easy to unite consciousness (and incidentally pick out dissenters) than in a crowd of 3,000!).

Joseph did not get thrown into prison! He started the first successful pluralistic Free Love initiative in recorded history! While others during his time were oppressed by a patriarchal society, Joseph saw the value of a matriarchal system! He even led the way for Freudian dream analysis!

Esther did not fear for her life! She realized the unique perspective that new generations enjoy, and rejected the right-wing-fundamentalist-extremist (Fascist!) views of her uncle. She recognized the unmerited preference that her people enjoyed, and was extremely supportive of Haman and his fellow freedom fighters. She was a frequent spokesperson in the Babylonian media, speaking out against the radical claims of Jews, and seeking to bring attention to the persecuted plight of Ammonites oppressed by Jews everywhere. While not directly attacking the biased account of Jews being a peace-loving, law-abiding people who had endured a vast history of suffering, she helped to popularize the understanding which we now know is true: that any injustice that a Jew receives at any time is amplified by 10,000 before it is repeated to anyone else. With her help, Babylonians came to see the truth — that Jews were indeed money-grubbing, self-promoting radicals who had no mercy for the people groups they displaced and oppressed. As a Jew herself, she also was widely successful in her public addresses to her people. She could speak directly to the Jews and tell them their own unflagging stubbornness was the reason for their conflict with the Ammonites! If they would only soften their cultural mores and show the proper amount of deference for those over them, they could coexist in peace! She was able to relieve their misguided fears that Haman and other Ammonites were planning a merciless ethnic cleansing campaign. (Anyone who tuned into the Babylonian Broadcasting Network knew that it was the Jews, not the Ammonites that were the aggressors!) Without her support, it is entirely possible that Ammonites would not have seen the kind of political and personal success that solidified their position in history and freed them from the bondage of Jewish oppression.

John the Baptist was not beheaded! He began an astonishingly progressive “Reinvent Marriage” campaign. Under his watch, couples in his city who best demonstrated The New Morality were profiled in the Jerusalem Times. Naturally, the first couple to be profiled were Herod and Herodias. During their interview, they were even able to mention the Interpretive Dance course that Herodias’ daughter was offering! Once they “came out,” many other creative couples were more than willing to share their story.

Moses did not wander in the desert for forty years! He didn’t threaten his nation’s Pharaoh with statements from “God.” Oh no! He recognized his place as subordinate to the government, and came to realize that his schizophrenic tendencies could best be dealt with through modern Egyptian medicine (he liked frog legs anyway). He happily labored in Egypt after realizing that his people were being given the best possible education they could ask for: a worker’s education! He organized labor committee meetings with ninety-nine representatives from Pharoah’s government, and one incredibly lucky Israeli worker-representative! These successful meetings proceeded for sixty-six and one half years! And they were even supported by dues from the workers themselves! He wisely recognized the usefulness of his people, and joined the People’s Educational Council. He also was instrumental on the People’s Propaganda—ahem—Informational Bureau. Under his direction this bureau accomplished what many thought impossible: the dwarfing of its early successes in the No Straw Is Good Policy and the Midwives for Birth Control (Before or After Birth) campaigns.

I haven’t the time to go on, as I would like to. I’d like to tell you the truth about Nehemiah—that he wasn’t threatened with hate mail! That he didn’t carry out obscure construction projects for hate mongers, but hosted town hall meetings where he encouraged his people to form religion-bridging relationships with their neighbors! I’d like to tell you about Jeremiah—who was not thrown into a well, but as chief advisor to the king, always reassured him that they would be victorious! Oh, and if only I could tell you about Elijah, who did not carry out mountain-top histrionics, but quite logically started a Foundation for Pagan Religious Expression—complete with its own piercing and tattoo parlor. Noah, Gideon, Jael, Joshua, Abigail, Naboth, Stephen, Paul, Jesus—so many stories, so little time. Right wingers will try to tell you that the most notable events in their lives were when they resisted. But I assure you: these people were most notable when they assented.

The abiding lessons in these people’s lives, children, is that it is always best to bend! Recite it with me: Best to Bend, Best to Bend. Exactly! Don’t stand when everyone else is kneeling! Don’t stand when everyone else is bowing! Bend means Blend. Say it again! Yes! Bend means Blend! As you can see from the examples of David, Daniel, Joseph, Esther, John-the-Baptist, and Moses, holding to antiquated “ideals” never gets your name recorded in history. Consistency is no virtue. Recognize those in authority, and obey them, no matter what!

in Politics / Theology 0 comments