Article by Jon Ham

The malignant effects of political correctness on our society continue apace.  I wrote a column in my old newspaper more than 20 years ago predicting that what was then the infant PC movement would lead to thought control, or attempts at it anyway, in our political discourse.  Well, let me just say I told you so.

The political correctness movement was Orwellian from the start, playing with words and changing the language in ways that obfuscated reality.  Janitors became custodial engineers, poor people became disadvantaged, cripples became otherly abled.  As was inevitable, using the previously acceptable words soon became an offense to good taste and evidence of bigotry.  So, everyone played the game and began using the often absurd synonyms that the high priests of PC ordained that we use.

Work places jumped on the bandwagon, so now, if you used one of the banned words, even privately, there was the danger of being disciplined or fired.  Corporations rushed to see who could be the most PC of all.  That later morphed into seeing who could be the most green, the most diverse, the most accepting of government intrusions into the private lives of workers, such as local ordinances that required companies to tell government how each employee got to work (this happened in Durham in 2000).

Soon, those who chafed at these restrictions on their freedoms just shut up and took it.  At least we can believe what we believe, they wrongly assumed.  But that was not to be, either.  You couldn’t be against affirmative action or the radical gay agenda without being tarred as racist or homophobic.  Many employers and corporations, not wanting to be associated with either of those charges, made it clear what employees had to do to think in the “right” way, even if it violated one’s religious teachings or political beliefs.

The case of writer Orson Scott Card and gay activists who protest his being a writer for DC Comics exemplifies the downward spiral we’ve been in due to political correctness:

A writer for DC Comics‘ Superman series has come under attack by homosexual rights activists, who view his work as anti-gay and want him fired.

Orson Scott Card is one of a team of writers and artists to create the new digital DC Comics product, “Adventures of Superman,” according to a report from Fox News.  Mr. Card is a Mormon and vocal opponent of gay marriage.  Fox News reported he once referred to same-sex marriage as the end of democracy in American and suggested “the left is at war with the family.”

Mr. Card also wrote:  “Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people’s desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex marriage is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles,” Fox News reported.

For those who don’t know, Card is a world-renowned science-fiction writer, author of the mega-successful books Ender’s Game and Speaker For The Dead.  He lives in Greensboro and writes a weekly column for The Rhinoceros Times, a Greensboro weekly that includes once each month a 16-page edition of the John Locke Foundation’s Carolina Journal.

Thousands of gay activists are petitioning DC to fire Card, but, to their credit, the comic book company seems to be resisting:

Fox News reports that DC Comics is so far standing by Mr. Card’s “personal views.”

And that’s the point.  They are his personal views.  He’s not out physically harming gays, or keeping them from getting employed, or even married.  He’s just expressed his views that are based on his religious beliefs.  But beliefs that go against the multicultural ethos of our times are becoming, in the view of those who push political correctness, tantamount to hate crimes.

If you sat down and dreamed up a concept and an ideology designed to destroy free speech and freedom of thought, you couldn’t come up with a better one than political correctness.

Entry by Bill Cochrane

I was raised to respect the law.  I was trained in school about the Rule of Law and Equal Justice Under the Law -- about the essential nature of just laws to maintain societal order.  I was informed in church about the sacredness of Truth and higher laws that apply to men and societies.

All nations have borders.  They always have had borders.  Before there were nations, there were kingdoms and tribal territories.  All had borders.  All societies from the time man stopped depending upon nomadic hunting, have established borders which defined and contained their societies.  This is no less true today than it was in the first farming enclave.

What is different today is that we have a whole slew of greedy selfish people in the United States who care nothing for the Rule of Law, for Equal Justice Under the Law, or for societal survival.  All these people care about is their own selfish interests and their agenda for controlling others.  These people are willing to blatantly lie.  They will twist the language.  They will employ deceit and intimidation to have their way.

After reading of the illegal immigrant telling Congress "not to call him illegal" and seeing illegal immigrants flagrantly glorified by our evil president at last night's State of the Union, I cannot hold my tongue.  Someone must call these jackals out.

Yes, Mr. Vargas, you are illegal!  You -- or your family as a whole -- broke our laws and came into our country illegally.  You are "undocumented" because you are illegally here.  You are a foreign national illegally residing in this nation; therefore, you are alien to this nation.  You are, Mr. Vargas, an illegal alien!

Please pull out a dictionary and read the definition of alien:

alien n (14c)
1 : a person of another family, race, or nation
2 : a foreign-born resident who has not been naturalized and is still a subject or citizen of a foreign country ; broadly: a foreign-born citizen

Don't try to tell me that words have "new" or no meaning.  If the meanings of words can be changed at will by anyone with an agenda, then the language is useless.  If we allow folks like you and that stupid Michigan politician to manipulate the meanings of words on their own whims, then words become meaningless, and society fails.

I am convinced now more than ever that societal destruction is the plan of the leftists, the Islamists, and the illegal aliens.  There seems to be a loose coalition of people whose aim is to destroy our current society and form of government, replacing it with something "closer to their hearts' desire" (See Fabian Socialists).

Well I, for one, will not surrender my language nor my nation nor my faith nor my society nor my Liberty to a bunch of self-centered, lying, deceitful cronies.  I will not give into your ever-expanding idea of "political correctness".  No.  Mr. Vargas, you are an illegal alien who does not even possess respect for the nation you invaded or the people upon whom you intend to impose your presence and will -- regardless of laws, justice, or any resistance to your intrusions.  You, sir, are so arrogant and self-serving that you surely defame and shame your own home country as well as our own.

Legal immigrants are wonderful additions to our nation.  The vast majority of legal immigrants wish to integrate with our society, and they respect our laws and society.  Illegal aliens such as yourself, Mr. Vargas, are like termites, intending to feast on the foundations of our society while undermining and destroying its integrity.  Fie on you, sir -- and on the Michigan politician you rode in on.

And this corrupt administration refuses to enforce immigration laws and protect the borders even while promising to do so in order to induce spineless Congress into concessions of amnesty.  Even while Janet Napolitano, who knows nothing about truth, lies that the borders are "more secure than ever".  You can read the transcript of Chris Crane's testimony here.

Moore Tea Citizens held their final Saturday Seminar of 2012 at the Douglass Community Center on Pennsylvania Avenue in Southern Pines, NC, beginning at 11:00 am. Two fine speakers/moderators led the audience through discussions of politics and Christianity: Pastor Joshua Haire of the First Missionary Baptist Church of Southern Pines and Dr. Tim Johnson, Founder and CEO of the Frederick Douglass Foundation and former Vice-Chair of the NC Republican Party.

The program was most informative, enlightening, and provocative. Three videos were shown, which are embedded in this recording of the event. One of the primary messages is that Christians must vote based on Christian and Biblical principles. Christians cannot simply go to Church on Sunday and then vote contrary to their Faith on Tuesday.


Bill Cochrane

My wife and I are native North Carolinians.  But we grew up in and always lived in areas with clay and rocky soils.  It wasn't until we retired to the Sandhills that we lived in sand.  Until our retirement here, sand like this meant you were at the beach!

And we've never been very good at gardening or horticulture or landscaping.  After this little tale, you'll understand why I'm turning it all back over to the professionals.

Upon moving here, we loved the longleaf pines.  We did.  But they're everywhere!  And the other trees you see are "all the same" -- dogwoods, redbuds, bradford pears, japanese red maples....  And all those twisted, stunted scrub oaks!

So, on our first trip to the NC mountains after moving here, we were "captured" by the beautiful sight of a large sourwood tree at the inn.  It was springtime, and the tree was in full bloom, covered with lacy white strings of blossoms which contrasted with the lush green leafy foliage.  We just had to have one at home -- if it would grow here.

So, I researched.  The climate region was just right here.  All the temperature ranges, growing season, annual rainfall, etc. were just right.  The literature said sourwood needed "well drained soil" and "preferred a slope", but likes some moisture.  We live on the side of a hill -- alright, it's a big ancient sand dune, but around these parts, it's considered a hill.  So good slope....  And the sand certainly drains well.  Good, right?

So I bought a seven foot sourwood tree and planted it on the hillside next to our home.  The first two years it turned green at the right time and produced a few blossoms, and then it shed its leaves at the right time.  But it really didn't put out new growth, in spite of all the watering and fertilizing spikes and loving attention that we gave it.  I knew something was wrong.

This spring it leafed out, and then the late frost came.  All the new tender leaves turned brown.  And that was it.  The thing just gave up and died.

I should have known better.  The developer of Longleaf and his landscaper were, apparently, equally skilled as we at selecting plantings.  Along Knoll Road they had planted a row of birch trees on either side.  The trees had managed to survive to early maturity, but they were doomed.  The root systems were weak, and disease had set in, causing blight and limb deaths, beginning at the treetop levels.  It was just a matter of time, they told us at last year's neighborhood association meeting.  The trees would slowly die and have to be taken down.  They were not native species and could not survive in this area.  They simply could not tolerate these sandy soils.  They were adapted to a different ecology altogether.

The same is true for our poor sourwood tree.  It was not indigenous to this area, and it could not tolerate sand.

Lesson:  You cannot violate nature's laws.  Some trees simply cannot survive in the Sandhills of NC.  Don't try to transplant them here.

If you do want to try to have such species survive here, at least for a while, here's what you have to do....  Dig out as much of the native soil as possible.  Add in a great deal of rotting dead organic material and a generous portion of manure.  These, mixed with the pure native soil will change the drainage and water retention characteristics of the soil around the newly developing root system, also providing the necessary nutrients.  Also, sandy soil has a high pH -- it is alkaline -- and these trees need acidic soils.  So you have to add an acidic fertilizer or conditioners to raise the pH.

So, if you transform the earth around the root ball of the newly planted sapling, you can ensure that it will take hold and start to grow.  But sooner or later, the roots are going to reach beyond your carefully prepared cocoon, and your prepared mix is going to become depleted.  The tree will die.

You're probably way ahead of me by now....  This reminds me of the state of our nation.   Early in the twentieth century, the socialists and communists tried to transplant themselves in the United States.  Their ideology simply couldn't gain a foothold.  Every sprout would quickly die and disappear.  But progressives realized the problem.  They had to change the soil.  They began to slowly but steadily introduce rot into the culture.  They polluted and perverted and corrupted, basically adding heaps of manure.  And they poured acid into the wounds, eroding the bonds that held the foundations and our people together.  They set about changing the soil.

Founders' principles, Liberty, and a firm conviction in Limited Government had made it impossible for socialism and communism to grow.  But progressivism made it possible for the principles of Marx to take hold and begin to grow.  The evil tree even came to full flower in 2000 and blossomed fragrantly in 2008.  Progressive preparations and political correctness have allowed an alien invasive species to infest America the Beautiful.

Will it survive?  The only thing that keeps me going is a belief that the underlying, undying devotion of America to the principles of Liberty, Individualism, Morality -- and that means God -- and free markets will wither the roots and wilt the leaves of this evil tree.  God willing, it will never bear fruit, and in the coming elections a cold backlash by the voters will prove as devastating as that early spring freeze on my struggliing sourwood tree.


Bill Cochrane

It seems like anything "Greece" is mired in trouble nowadays.  Another perversion of the law and Constitution has occurred in little Greece, New York.  This article reports how two misguided obsessive women without any meaning in their lives have sought to find that meaning by suing the little town for conducting prayers before the town's meetings.  After a lower court ruled against the two biddies on common sense grounds -- unfortunately not Constitutional grounds -- the Second Circuit Court of Appeals then ruled for them on a complete perversion of the Constitution.

As has been explained on this site and elsewhere, there is no such thing as "separation of church and state" in the Constitution or Declaration.  It is a perverted concept propagated by corrupt Progressives to erode the culture.  It is the 28th goal of the Communist platform, designed expressly to weaken the society and prepare the way for a Marxist transformation.

The town officials of Greece should, until sanity and Constitutional principles are restored to the Union, simply follow the example of Indian River, Delaware.  It is a simple and effective way to thwart the nefarious efforts of the leftists.

Meanwhile, I salute the Moore County Board of Commissioners for upholding the long history and tradition of prayer before government (in this case, Commission) meetings which goes all the way back to the first days of the Republic.  No amount of perverted court rulings or leftist/progressive attempts to re-write history can erase the veracity of this fact.  I deeply respect the Moore County Board of Commissioners for their stand and the strong statement that they make.

I urge the Town of Southern Pines to follow suit.  I have noted that the Town of Southern Pines neither pays respect to our God nor to our Country before any of its meetings.  Neither a prayer nor a Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag -- nor even to the NC flag -- is offered before any official meetings of the Town of Southern Pines.  I guess the Town officials either feel that respect for such institutions is beneath their exalted station -- or else the town officials are too timorous to tempt any local athiest/leftist bullies who might challenge the Constitution, history, traditions, verity, patriotism, and goodness of the homage.  For my part, I say:  Shame!


Bill Cochrane

Thirty children?  Talk about reproducing like rabbits!  But when there's no sense of personal responsibility -- when somebody else is paying for it -- when the more kids the more money and free stuff you get -- well, why not?

I know you've probably read the news reports about Desmond Hatchett.  If this nation does not stop raising generations of takers and moochers -- reject the nanny-state socialist utopian experiment -- we are doomed.  There are no longer any penalties -- only government rewards for destructive behavior.  It's just gotta stop!

Judson Phillips says it well below.


Bill Cochrane
________________

This one has to be filed under the heading of unbelievable.

A man in Knoxville, Tennessee is the father of thirty children.  Thirty children by eleven different women.  He holds a minimum wage job and has gone to court to ask the judge to give him some relief from his child support payments.

What happened here?   How did it happen?

Okay, we can skip the obvious part about how it happened.  But there is a much more serious issue here.  In the last few years, a new word has entered the American lexicon.  It is “Baby daddy.”  Baby daddy refers to the biological father of a child who is not married to the mother and is often not involved in the child’s life.

How could a guy have so many children?  It is simple. The government subsidizes illegitimacy.

Fifty years ago, illegitimacy was fairly rare.  There was the social stigma attached to it and there was also the financial issue.  We did not have working mothers like we do today and if a woman became pregnant she knew her only alternative was to marry the father.  Likewise, for the men involved, if they got a girl pregnant they knew they were obligated to marry the woman.   That alone kept some men on the straight and narrow.

Then came welfare.  Suddenly not only was illegitimacy not a problem, generous welfare packages made it attractive not to have a man in the house or in the picture.  If the woman married the man, she would lose benefits.   If she stayed single, she kept the benefits.

There is a very simple rule of economics that the left does not understand.   If you subsidize anything, you get more of it.  The left created the welfare state, which subsidized out of wedlock births and what did you get?  More out of wedlock births!

The women have the children.  They are provided public housing, and medical coverage and food stamps and welfare payments. The men are hounded by state agencies to pay their child support and as many of them cannot and only hold down minimum wage jobs, they frequently end up in the debtor’s prison for men who cannot pay their child support.

Those on the left like to screech about cold-hearted conservatives, who want to end welfare, toss welfare mothers and their children onto the streets.  Yet these same Democrats are responsible for the utter devastation of segments of American society with their idiotic policies that have failed and failed completely.  Instead of owning up to their mistakes, all they do is vilify those who try to fix the problems.

Meanwhile, in Knoxville, Desmond Hatchett labors away at minimum wage, begging a judge to cut the child support he is required to pay for thirty children by eleven women.  He does not care whether he has more kids by more women.  He does not pay for them.  One of the children gets $1.49 a month as his share of child support!

Hatchett does not worry about it and neither do the women he sleeps with.  They do not have to worry because if they get pregnant the government will take care of them.  Hatchett only complains because what little money he makes is being taken by the government.  Perhaps he should have thought about that before he slept with all of those women.



Judson Phillips