dishonesty

Around the Web (Extremist Edition)

Calvin Freiburger anger, blogosphere, conservatism, David Frum, dishonesty, extremism, Glenn Beck, misc, resercons

Think your neighbor might be a racist?  Via Power Line, here’s a handy chart that helps you find out (Newsweek can help in that regard, too).

The Washington Post reports that the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit has struck down some major campaign finance restrictions; political advocacy groups “are now free to accept unlimited contributions, to spend unlimited funds independently supporting or opposing federal candidates.”  Interestingly, this particular suit was first filed by the pro-abortion Emily’s List, yet the report stresses that the ruling could be “a boon to groups tapping into the fervor of anti-Obama activity and ‘tea party’ events.”  Regardless of whose ox is being gored, the fewer restrictions on participation in the political process, the better.

Via Hot Air, even more reasons to distrust David Brock’s con men at Media Matters: first, they accuse Hot Air of “smearing” Van Jones by making the true statement that he was a 9/11 Truther.  Of course, in order to support this lie, MM needs to selectively omit pesky language about “immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”  Second, they’ve been caught selectively editing video of Glenn Beck discussing the recent ACORN sting operations, removing precisely what they accuse Beck of not saying.  Unbelievable.

Speaking of Glenn Beck, conservative-hating conservative David Frum has been on the warpath against Fox’s newest rising star.  David Horowitz has been sticking up for Beck, and catching Frum in a lie or two in the process.  Frum has nothing to say about the substance of Horowitz’s arguments, aside from complaining that Beck’s apparently too cozy with Ron Paul.  Is he?  I don’t know—it’s late, I’m not Glenn Beck’s spokesman (I tend to think he does more good than harm, but he’s unquestionably eccentric), and I’ve got better things to do than watch old cable news interviews.  You can decide for yourself if you’re so inclined.  I will say, however, that I strongly disagree with any conservative who gives so much as a second’s airtime to this lunatic, and Beck deserves criticism for that, no matter how defensible some of Paul’s domestic-policy ideas may be.  But is a TV host being overly-friendly to certain guests grave enough to warrant the kind of purge Frum (ironically, given his big-tent worship) demands?  I don’t think so.

Earlier this week, Frum also linked uncritically to this HuffPo piece claiming that Beck has supposedly lost over half his ad revenue…without mentioning it’s a reprint of the press release from Color of Change, the guys behind the boycott.  Neither did he mention that their claims are crap.

Lastly, in case you haven’t noticed, alleged onetime conservative (and current pathetic toad) Charles Johnson has incurred the wrath of Robert Stacy McCain for his rank smear-mongering.  Here’s Stacy’s latest.  Required reading?  Nah, but it’s darn satisfying.  Oh, how I love the smell of smoked weasel in the morning…

Pro-Life Activist Murdered; Predictable Reactions Ensue

Calvin Freiburger abortion, crime, dishonesty, evil, hypocrisy, murder

On Friday, a lunatic named Harlan James Drake allegedly shot and killed two people, including a pro-life activist named Jim Pouillon, who was protesting abortion outside a school in Owosso, Michigan (the other murder, of Michael Fuoss, was apparently personal).  The suspect was reportedly offended by Pouillon’s graphic signs depicting aborted babies.

Is Barack Obama, Kate Michelman, Andrew Sullivan, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Barbara Boxer, or the broader pro-choice movement responsible for this crime?  Of course not, and presently, pro-lifers are not suggesting otherwise.  In fact, American Life League’s statement on the killing (issued prior to the establishment of a motive) urges only caution against hasty conclusions.  I have yet to see any politicization of this tragedy, aside from observing the obvious left-wing and media hypocrisy, which is legitimate.

After George Tiller’s death, liberal after liberal wasted no time in slandering the entire pro-life movement as culpable for the actions of one man (yet the abortion movement is never responsible for violence committed by its adherents).  Unlike the numerous pro-life organizations who promptly condemned the murder of Tiller, NARAL and Planned Parenthood have said nothing about Pouillon’s murder as of this morning.  President Obama evidently doesn’t think Pouillon’s death is as statement-worthy as Tiller’s.

This is simply the Left’s long-standing totalitarian impulse at work yet again, from the same playbook as what we’re seeing with the healthcare townhalls—don’t address substantive arguments honestly, don’t foster real discussion, just use whatever you can to intimidate your opposition into silence.  It’s all about control, by any means necessary.

Healthcare, Hatred & Hypocrisy

Calvin Freiburger activism, anger, birth certificate controversy, dishonesty, FdL Reporter, healthcare, hypocrisy, letters, me, moonbats

The Reporter has published my latest flagrant act of speech.  Here’s the Director’s Cut:

*          *          *

Barack Obama’s national healthcare plan [PDF link] has met tremendous opposition—polls show ObamaCare becoming less popular the more America learns about it, and townhall protests have many politicians cowering under their desks.

It’s easy to see why—the Congressional Budget Office contradicts Obama’s cost predictions almost as soon as he makes them. His promise that you can keep your current plan contradicts his campaign-trail desires to use a public option as a bridge to single-payer.  Despite claims to the contrary, FactCheck.org says ObamaCare will cover abortions, and the Congressional Research Service says it’ll likely end up covering illegal immigrants.  Countries like Canada are moving away from government and towards the free market to remedy their disastrous nationalized systems.

The Left is retaliating as they always do: demagoguery.  House leaders Nancy Pelosi & Steny Hoyer call the protesters “un-American.”  Pelosi makes blanket statements about protesters “carrying swastikas.”  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls them “evil-mongers.”  The media routinely insinuates that anti-Obama sentiment is really just anger over a black man in the White House.

As usual, liberals are lying—most of the Obama-Hitler comparisons have come not from conservatives, but from followers of Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe figure who supports a single-payer healthcare plan even more extreme than ObamaCare.  MSNBC pondered the racism of those bringing guns to townhalls—while running selective footage hiding the black skin of the armed person in their video.

And lest you think their anti-hatred sentiment is sincere, recall the antiwar protests of 2002 onward, where Bush-Hitler comparisons (plus plenty of anti-Semitism) were all the rage (no pun intended).  Pelosi felt differently about “shouting down” opponents then—she told a group of Code Pink extremists: “I’m a fan of disrupters.”  As the Sweetness & Light weblog recently noted, there are over 16 million Hitler references at the liberal weblog Daily Kos—an organization embraced by Obama, Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barney Frank.  Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Robert Byrd, Rep. Keith Ellison, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann have all compared Republicans to Nazis.

Indeed, it was the “Lion of the Senate,” the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy, who arguably did more to debase modern political discourse than anyone in recent memory, with his famous screed that ““Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of the government.”

Former Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe endorsed Michael Moore’s fanatic, lie-filled Fahrenheit 9/11, whose DC premiere was attended by “Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Montana Sen. Max Baucus, South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, Washington Rep. Jim McDermott, and others.”  Moore also attended the 2004 Democratic National Convention as the personal guest of President Jimmy Carter, who called Fahrenheit 9/11 one of his favorite movies.

Obama himself saw no problem exposing his children to the bigoted Rev. Jeremiah Wright for years, or numerous relations with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Will Ayers, including a 1995 political “coming-out” party, a favorable review of one of Ayers’ books in 1997, and more.  In 2008 he routinely said his opponents would say Obama “doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency.’”

Have some protesters acted badly?  Sure, every movement has its loons.  But so what?  It’s ridiculous to think the conduct of some conservative in Vermont should reflect on another in Wisconsin, and as anyone who’s ever tried to calm down Crazy Uncle Billy at Thanksgiving dinner should realize, it’s insane to expect that Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh can somehow enforce behavioral lockstep among every member of a movement comprised of millions of people.

Indeed, if you think only bad movements have extremists, look up abolitionist John Brown sometime.

What matters is the character of the majority and the responsibility of the leadership, and here conservatism leaves liberalism in the dust.  For instance, a few fringe conservatives embrace the Obama birth certificate conspiracy, but most—the Republican National Committee, National Review, Human Events, the American Spectator, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, John Hawkins, and more—have rejected it.  Can the Left say the same about “blood for oil” in Iraq, or President Bush’s National Guard service?

Savagery is at the Left’s core (as a stroll through the comment threads on fdlreporter.com can confirm).  It’s all about intimidating dissenters into silence.  Yesterday’s cherished hallmark of democracy is today’s intolerable act of treason.  Don’t fall for their lies—and don’t let them get away with their own sins.

*          *          *

Once again, the comment section is a merry menagerie of missives from morons & malcontents (with a couple much-appreciated exceptions)—you’ve got the inability to distinguish between sweeping generalization and specific statement of fact, or between ordinary expression of disagreement and genuine hate speech; the standard-issue big business boogeyman (sorry, guys, but not quite), blurring the distinction between “reform” and a specific plan of “reform,” a groundless insult toward Hillsdale College (a conservative school, yes, but I daresay you’ll find more ideological diversity—both among faculty and students—here than the average state school) and my personal favorite, Marvin49’s suggestion that I’m a plagiarist.  Again we see that Internet anonymity does wonders for the dissemination of slander.

The Liberal Playbook: Gay Marriage

Calvin Freiburger anger, blogosphere, civil unions, conservatism, dishonesty, education, FdL Reporter, Fond du Lac High School, homosexuality, hypocrisy, letters, liberalism, me, moonbats, propaganda, religion

The Reporter has published my latest commentary on civil unions in Wisconsin, predictably bringing angry liberals out of the woodwork.  It’s interesting to note how predictable, one-note, and disinterested in what’s actually said, these guys generally are, and it’s important for conservatives to know what logical fallacies, sleights of hand, and personal attacks to expect when stepping into the ring with a liberal.

Take, for instance, the assumption that religion plays a leading role in my opinion, despite never being mentioned.  Liberal orthodoxy dictates that virtually no conservative opinion, especially on social issues, can possibly be held in good faith, so there must be an ulterior motive—in this case, hatred of gays and religious dogma.  Liberal orthodoxy further dictates that the slightest hint of religion (real or otherwise) in an opinion or discussion is something to be feared and immediately disqualified from consideration.

The other main objection is that, without civil unions, gays are denied equal rights.  I reject this premise entirely, for several reasons, the short version being just as I said in the article: “Many of the so-called rights gay couples are allegedly denied, such as hospital visitation and power-of-attorney related issues, are either already available to gays, easily achievable without creating new government relationship statuses, or were created to aid couples raising children on just one parent’s income, and are thus irrelevant to gay couples (as well as to dual-income straight couples).”  Moreover, I say “so-called rights” because most marriage benefits are not “rights” at all, but rather provisions offered as part of a contract.

I made clear that same-sex marriage was not the issue at dispute in my letter—the main topic was this measure’s constitutionality.  However, you’ll find that same-sex marriage advocates tend to struggle with the concept of “staying on topic,” and will completely skip your argument, instead jumping straight to why you’re evil for not supporting gay marriage.  If you refuse to let them change the subject and insist on staying on topic, you will be mischaracterized as either ducking the question or admitting defeat.

Regardless of whether or not you actually said anything demeaning towards homosexuals, no matter how much you insist you also want gay people to be able to visit their ailing partners in the hospital, you should still expect condescending lectures about how gays are people too, how homosexuality is predetermined (both propositions I accept, by the way…not that these armchair psychiatrists care), etc.  You will be psychoanalyzed with utter certitude, your opinions attributed to fear, hatred, or ignorance.  References to violence against gay Americans, black segregation, and even al-Qaeda will be thrown about with reckless abandon.

How do they know?  They just do.  They care, you don’t.  Bigot.

Also be prepared for raw hatred & childishness, such as casual references to “half-baked turd[s] of imflammatory mush” (this gem, incidentally, is from the author of the Daily Kos entry linked above, and once responded, badly, to another of my letters, noteworthy for its hypocrisy: she claims she doesn’t “want to write in anger.”).

You may even have outright lies told about you, and you may see long-simmering grudges boil over—bravely aired behind veils of anonymity, naturally.  “FDL54935” says:

Mr. Freiburger got his 15 seconds of fame since his parents went WAY overboard on a school issue. The man (Calvin) is one of the weakest writers in this community. If my sources are correct, he is barely making it through community college. I know times are tough and this is an issue that needs to be debated, but please limit editorials to those with an IQ over 75.

The issue to which our zip code refers is the case when a Fond du Lac High School teacher complained about my saying “God Bless America” over the school intercom, which the administration subsequently lied about.

Now, maybe Mr. Code was misled by news outlets that falsely reported my family was angry over the school’s speed in handling the matter, rather than their dishonesty.  Maybe he’s been lied to by propagandists whose sham reporting completely distorts the incident.  Then again, perhaps he’s the one doing the lying…after all, he’s angry enough about it to lie about my education, citing “sources” that probably don’t exist.  The real school I attend isn’t a community college, is nothing to sneeze at, and I think making Hillsdale’s Dean’s List for the second year in a row is a little better than “barely making it through.” (By the way, if you have the audacity to defend yourself by citing such facts, you can probably expect to be accused of bragging at some point, too.)

Hmm, it almost makes you wonder whether or not FDL54935’s got some kind of personal connection to the Fond du Lac School District…(crazy thought, I know.  The educational community is much too professional for that sort of thing, right?)

Hatred, anger, condescension, childishness, demonization, and persecution are all the rage (no pun intended) among the modern American Left, including the gay marriage movement.  For some liberals, I suspect, the root cause may be an insecure need for self-affirmation; for others, it is a manifestation of the liberal impulse to delegitimize opposing speech as soon as possible, to give it as little consideration as possible.  The Left wants to intimidate, not deliberate.

Don’t let them.  Don’t let yourself be shamed or silence by a movement that’s not exactly pure as the new-fallen snow itself.  Never apologize for believing that marriage matters.

Birthers Go Home

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, birth certificate controversy, conspiracy theories, dishonesty, moonbats, scandal, stupidity

This week, it came out that John McCain’s campaign conducted an internal investigation into the rumors that Barack Obama was not really born in Hawaii, and is therefore ineligible for the presidency:

While they ruled out any chance of the ‘birther’ lawsuits holding up in court, lawyers for the McCain campaign did check into the rumors about Obama’s birth and the assertions made by Berg and others. “To the extent that we could, we looked into the substantive side of these allegations,” said Potter. “We never saw any evidence that then-Senator Obama had been born outside of the United States. We saw rumors, but nothing that could be sourced to evidence. There were no statements and no documents that suggested he was born somewhere else. On the other side, there was proof that he was born in Hawaii. There was a certificate issued by the state’s Department of Health, and the responsible official in the state saying that he had personally seen the original certificate. There was a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser, which would be very difficult to invent or plant 47 years in advance.”

Granted, McCain hardly had the best judgment when it came to attacking Obama, but they were right to skip this foolishness.  As John Hawkins has pointed out, it’s got no legs:

– The people at FactCheck.org have seen the certificate of live birth provided from the state of Hawaii to the Obama campaign and it is genuine.

– Although Hawaii “state law prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record,” the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health [a Republican appointee] has certified that Obama does have a legitimate birth certificate on file in Hawaii.

– In a print copy of the 1961 Honolulu Advertiser, there’s a notice that Barack Obama was born. In and of itself, this is a game, set, match conversation-ender on this subject unless people want to argue that this isn’t genuine or that there was a conspiracy going all the way back to the day of Obama’s birth to make him President.

Unfortunately, this isn’t enough for the Birther crowd, spearheaded by WorldNetDaily.  When you point this stuff out to them, they posit all sorts of hypothetical scenarios about how a birth certificate or newspaper clipping could have been issued to a non-resident, and so forth.  But that doesn’t cut it.  We could talk all day about how the moon landing might have been faked, or how World Trade Center Seven could have been destroyed by controlled demolition, but since the magnitude of the allegation is so severe—that the President of the United States is constitutionally illegitimate—it is morally irresponsible to give them serious consideration in the absence of affirmative reasons to believe Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii.

Birthers claim to have such evidence, in the form of testimony from Obama’s grandmother that he was born in Kenya.  But that claim doesn’t withstand scrutiny either:

During the interview, which was conducted through a translator by a street preacher named Ron McRae, Sarah Obama does in fact say she was present. But it’s clear that there was a mistranslation, because as soon as McRae very excitedly starts to try to get additional details, the people on the other end of the line realize what’s happened and say, over and over again, that Obama was born in the U.S.

For some reason, the transcripts of the interview that have been posted on various right-wing Web sites all seem to cut off right after Sarah Obama says she was there when her grandson was born. So does this YouTube video with the audio of the interview. But as The Economist points out, McRae also released the full audio, in which the key parts of the conversation can be heard. Here’s part of it. (The other person speaking is translator Vitalis Akech Ogombe.)

MCRAE: When I come in December. I would like to come by the place, the hospital, where he was born. Could you tell me where he was born? Was he born in Mombasa?

OGOMBE: No, Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America.

MCRAE: Whereabouts was he born? I thought he was born in Kenya.

OGOMBE: No, he was born in America, not in Mombasa.

MCRAE: Do you know where he was born? I thought he was born in Kenya. I was going to go by and see where he was born.

OGOMBE: Hawaii. Hawaii. Sir, she says he was born in Hawaii. In the state of Hawaii, where his father was also learning, there. The state of Hawaii.

When the house of cards all but collapses, the Birthers play their trump: “All Obama would have to do to satisfy us is release his original birth certificate.  Why doesn’t he?  That proves he’s hiding something!”  Hawkins gives the answer, which should be obvious:

Well, why would he at this point? He has a significant number of conservatives wasting enormous amounts of time on a side issue that can never bear any fruit and, as an added bonus, it makes them look somewhat unhinged to many Americans. When your political enemies are making fools of themselves, why stop them?

Heck, that’s what I’d do in this situation if I were Obama!  The Birthers undermine the Right’s credentials on honesty, intellectual rigor, and moral seriousness, which we need to maintain if we are to stand up to the Left’s real lies.

Rave Reviews!

Calvin Freiburger anger, blogosphere, dishonesty, hypocrisy, liberalism, me, misc, moonbats, Rave Reviews, stupidity

See what the critics are saying about Calvin Freiburger:

“Typical know nothing conservative…” – Sheldon

“…Mr. Didn’t-Really-Do-Any-Research…” – Jay Morris

“As a resident of Wisconsin, I am embarrassed by Mr. Freiburger…” – Jude Noble

“Calvin Freiburger is not very bright…damn you’re stupid.” – bhd8ball

“…half-baked turd of imflammatory mush…Mr. Freiburger may be a legal adult, but he writes like a ten year old.” – cobweb1780, AKA Pan Zareta

“I expect in the future you will write articles about taking away rights from non-christians. Good Day Sir!” – ciretower

“Calvin you’re a nitwit.” – Matt

“Ah, yes, dear Mr. Freiburger and his little neocon fantasies.” – Prof. Omer Durfee

“Mr. Freiburger seems to devalue debate and disagreement within the American political sphere.” – Brent Schmitz

“What makes me afraid is his self-righteousness and implied superiority in his writing.” – Daniel Sitter

“You, my friend, are a metaphysical laughing stock. You are a literal will-to-nothingness. You slave. You nihilist.” – Anonymous Fark.com user

“You must be a fag. Do you have a wide stance?” – Mike

“…rude, insulting and just not someone we want to associate with.” – Alex Habrock

“Ideology-driven nutjob…crazy anti-sex, anti-woman…I am certainly willing to admit that you are capable of making sound arguments, when you’re not being hyperbolic and offensive.” – Brittany

“Scumbag…nosy and controlling neo-christian…cultist…bully…” – Aryeh

“… why haven’t you joined the armed forces yet? Put that money where that mouth is, chicken-boy.” – Anonymous

“20 years old + writing letter to editor = massive life fail.” – Etchy333

“Angry teenager alert…Why the hell would you want that sack of crap to endanger the lives of others when he’s crying in the middle of a firefight?” – NewportBarGuy

“Well with any luck he’ll continue on his way and turn out a repressed gay Republican.” – Generation_D

“His world is like a mirror opposite of reality. A Conservative Fundamentalist, you could say.” – Javacrucian

“Reminds me of that jackass David Horowitz…” – Necrosis

“I know many see this as funny, but people laughed about the funny little guy with the funny little moustache making hate-filled speeches too. It’s just a slow creeping change from sane to insane until the totally insane becomes reality.” – Befuddled

“Is it me, or does this kid look like a Hitler Youth member? Seriously.” – alternative girlfriend

“I do find it funny that a socially inept kid that believes in a Sky Ghost thinks he can chide our education system…” – Shaggy_C

“…and he’s a racist to boot!” – AndyMan1 (based solely on a disparaging remark about gangsta rap)

“This child comes off like a product of Hate Radio madrasas.” – SherKhan

“That kid is teh uglay!” – hachijuhachi

“note that this douchebag is going to Hillsdale College, a bastion of right-wing nuttiness.” – gregario

“He sounds like a douche and was probably ridiculed at school for being an asshat!” – Torque420

“That’s what happens when you can’t argue successfully. You resort to cheap name calling. And like I said, I love it.” – Jayce Commo

“People like calvin have been around a long time…. For example, those who though blacks didn’t deserve the same rights as whites…Some people (ex. Calvin) really enjoy feeling like they deserve more liberties than others.” – Adam Kempf

“…kiss my liberal American butt…I don’t think you have the balls to say any of this stuff to my face…morally inferior.” – Scott Feldstein

“… a mouth-breathing sycophant with all the intelligence of a particularly dim species of refrigerator mildew.” – Chet

“…dubious, bordering on dishonest…” – AnotherTosaVoter

“…stop being an extremist…you’ve been touching nerves for a couple comments now, with your disregard for the truth…Sounds to me like you get your history from the pulpit.” – Eneasz

“Calvin is clearly such a bigot, especially since he has amply displayed his own bigotry in this forum.” – martino

“Go to hell article writer.” – jake3988

The verdict is in, and the Left agrees: Calvin Freiburger is precisely the kind of ignorant, intolerant, rightwing extremist scum your Homeland Security Secretary warned you about!  Calvin Freiburger Online: shouldn’t you be reading?

Climate Change Dogmatists Circle the Wagons as the “Consensus” Unravels

Calvin Freiburger Barack Obama, dishonesty, global warming, propaganda

Two recent pieces on global warming merit your attention.  First, Michelle Malkin covers the Obama EPA’s suppression of an internal report on increasing concerns “that EPA and many other agencies and countries have paid too little attention to the science of global warming. EPA and others have tended to accept the findings reached by outside groups…as being correct without a careful and critical examination of their conclusions and documentation.”  Why?  Because its “comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.” So much for “an unprecedented level of openness in Government”…

Second, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel sums up how the trumped up global warming consensus is collapsing all over the world:

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.” Norway’s Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the “new religion.” A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton’s Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists’ open letter.)

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Be sure to read the whole thing.  There have always been more dissenters among scientists than dogmatic, angry lefties would have you believe.  Now that their house of cards is collapsing all around them, we can only expect them to get more shrill and defensive.

Rotten in SC

Calvin Freiburger dishonesty, infidelity, Mark Sanford, Republican Party, scandal

So we now know where Mark Sanford, Republican governor of South Carolina and would-be presidential contender, has been, and it sure wasn’t hiking:

After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair. Wiping away tears, he apologized to his family and gave up a national Republican Party post, but was silent on whether he would resign.

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” he said in a news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated on God’s law, moral absolutes and following one’s heart. He said he spent the last five days “crying in Argentina.”

He betrayed his family and blew off his state for a week, apparently out of self-pity.  Get him out.

Ground Zero: Taking Back the Schools, UPDATE: Latham Wins!

Calvin Freiburger conservatism, Constitution, dishonesty, education, Fond du Lac High School, Founding Fathers, history, liberalism, McCarthyism, me, Republican Party, revisionism, strategy

UPDATE: Chalk one up for the good guys—Mr. Latham has his job back!

Newsbusters and Fox News have the scoop (video from this morning’s Fox & Friends interview here) on Tim Latham, a high school social studies teacher who contends he’s been let go from his job merely for being a conservative.  Latham’s crimes:

– Not showing Barack Obama’s inauguration in class—never mind that he never has, and says he never would, shown video of any presidential inauguration.  Good to know that kneeling before Zod is now part of the job description.

– Having an overly-patriotic website, which states his goal to get students “to love your country, live the experiences of those who came before — to truly love the American way of life,” links to hotbeds of right-wing extremism like…uh, West Point and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and stories about terrorist attacks (which he was forced to remove).  Weird…it’s as if he thinks he’s teaching American kids or something…

– Putting a McCain-Palin bumper sticker on his car.  Doesn’t he realize that Sarah Palin is Potemkin symbolism?

His students love him and have gone to bat for him, and even the liberal kids insist he never forced his views on them.  School officials have reportedly admitted that they violated union procedures for firing teachers, and his colleagues have berated him for supporting “that woman” (hmm, that phrase sounds familiar…).  There’s nothing wrong with trying to instill honest patriotism in students—in fact, that’s precisely what a social studies teacher should do.

As far as I can tell, this is straight-up ideological persecution.  Public schools around the country are firmly in the grip of the Left—left-wing indoctrination and persecution are commonplace, and often take forms far more sinister than “to love your country.”

Make no mistake, this stuff goes on at our very own Fond du Lac High School, too.  Four of my five social studies teachers were very good and very fair, but one was a rabid antiwar, anti-Scott McCallum propagandists.  My AP English teacher had a reputation as a bitter left-wing fanatic, whose rants about Vietnam, George Bush, religion, and more would leave our class days behind schedule.  I know of a science teacher who told his students not to trust Fox News, and of another English teacher who railed against Bush (the same teacher who complained to school administration that I once uttered the phrase “God Bless America” on the intercom—which the principal later lied about).

And even when teachers aren’t pushing an agenda, textbooks often offer a flawed, biased view of American history and politics.  Some examples:

American Civics, Constitution Edition (1987) accepts the fatuous concept of the living Constitution as a given, characterizes the “Necessary & Proper” clause in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution as “allow[ing] Congress to take many actions not named in the Constitution,” never mentioning the substantial dispute over its nature early in our history, warns that “Many of [the problems in America’s schools] are caused by lack of money,” and makes no mention of the Federalist Papers.

America’s History, Fourth Edition (2000, Bedford/St. Martin’s) presents then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan as a mild, market-based solution to healthcare reform (no), wildly mischaracterizes Sen. Joe McCarthy as a lying demagogue (no), dismisses Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative as unrealistic (no), and outrageously asserts that Anita Hill’s accusations against Clarence Thomas were ignored only because there weren’t enough women in the Senate (no).

The American Pageant, Twelfth Edition (2001), the history book used in Fond du Lac High School’s AP US History courses during the 05/06 school year, also engages in vicious McCarthy revisionism, going so far as to impugn McCarthy’s military record as “trumped up,” characterizes one of Osama bin Laden’s grievances as America’s “support for Israel’s hostility to Palestinian nationalism,” adds a note into the text of the Second Amendment (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms [i.e., for military purposes] shall not be infringed”), and downplays the religiosity of the Framers, leaving their beliefs on religion’s societal importance unmentioned.

In Vindicating Lincoln, Hillsdale College Political Science Professor Thomas Krannawitter writes:

I recently led a civic education workshop for middle and high school teachers during which I presented the different views of the Framers of the Constitution offered by Abraham Lincoln [who said the Framers believed slavery to be evil and wanted to end it] and Chief Justice Roger Taney [who said they never meant for the Declaration of Independence to include blacks, whom they saw as little more than property…] After analyzing numerous original source documents from Lincoln, Taney, and the Founders, one of the teachers raised his hand in exasperation, explaining that for twenty-five years he had been teaching American government, and all along he had unknowingly been teaching Taney’s view of the Founding, not Lincoln’s.  He went on to explain that he had not taught Lincoln’s view because he had never encountered it, that all the American history and government textbooks simply parroted Taney’s groundless description of the Founders, and that he felt cheated by his own (mis)education.

There is some evidence that leftist thinking is even embedded into the training of modern teachers—the 1993 edition of School & Society, a textbook for teacher education, paints a grim picture of a country in which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer (one can just imagine what other goodies lie inside).

The Left’s stranglehold on education is going almost completely unchallenged, which is one of the Right’s greatest failings, and nothing less than a dereliction of duty by federal, state, and local Republican parties.  No attempt to truly advance conservative ideas or repair the damage the Left has done to this country will be complete without a full-blown offensive to restore integrity, accuracy, and fair-mindedness to the schools.  Millions of children are being taught to accept at face value false premises about our form of government, historical falsehoods presented as fact, a laundry list of supposed sins tarnishing the image of their country, and other core tenets of liberalism.  As documented by David Limbaugh and Jay Sekulow & Keith Fournier, bigotry towards students’ mild, benign religious expression is commonplace.

Morally, this situation is intolerable, and demands a vigorous opposition.  But conservatives also need to realize that any effort to make the conservative case in the media or during campaigns will be at a major disadvantage as long as major portions of its audience are receiving that message through the prism of their miseducation.  Converts to the Right will be won from time to time, but many more will unwittingly adopt and internalize tenets of the Left through their taxpayer-funded miseducation.

Conservatives need to watch their school districts with a fine toothed comb.  Pay attention to what your kids encounter.  Follow the school board meetings, whether in person or on local public access television.  Go to your schools’ libraries, and see what books are and aren’t there, and in what proportion (find out if your district keeps their libraries’ catalogs computerized).  Examine the textbooks used in class every chance you get (such as when new ones are up for adoption—the FdL School District has announced that community members can review a group of new books, including 5 social studies texts, until June 22).  Whenever cause for concern arises, pursue it, offer your support to those involved, demand answers from the officials, and raise awareness however you can—newspaper letters, emails, townhall meetings, you name it.  Pay attention to what kids are saying on RateMyTeachers.com, and don’t be afraid to contribute.

In a future post, I will create a list of key falsehoods and omissions in class curriculums, and other school practices, that parents, students, and other concerned citizens should watch out for.

Granted, taking a stand against liberal indoctrination is a guaranteed way to incur the wrath of the establishment, demonized as obsessed, petty, hateful, on a vendetta to destroy education itself, with no consideration “for the children.”  It takes courage and fortitude to withstand one of the Left’s trademark intimidation campaigns.  It’s a lot to ask of any individual, which is why organizations like local GOPs ought to take the lead.  We need parties brave enough to risk the invective and take up this fight and citizens who will urge their parties to take action.  If local Republican establishments cannot be spurred to action, we need concerned citizens willing to make this stand on their own.  Making enemies is never easy, but those who want to heal this country, advance conservatism, or restore the power and credibility of the Republican Party have no choice.

Flashback: When Planned Parenthood Told the Truth

Calvin Freiburger abortion, dishonesty, Planned Parenthood

One of my friends from Hillsdale alerted me to a remarkable find on Free Republic: a 1964 Planned Parenthood brochure, which in the course of promoting birth control, contrasts it with abortion, which PP says “An abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun.  It is dangerous to your life and health.  It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it” (emphasis added).

Today, though, they sidestep the “life” question, instead making the issue “personhood,” which nobody really has a final answer for…but “what we are all sure about is that a pregnant woman is a person.”

What a difference a few decades makes…especially a few decades in which science has made PP’s original conclusion crystal clear.