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Education and the Importance of Writing

Posted by Bert Chapman on Monday, April 30, 2012 7:46:43 PM
Writing is often considered the second pillar of the educational trinity of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  It is vitally important for individuals to succinctly communicate their actions, thoughts, and ideas in writing.  Parents and schools must teach their children how to write with their hands before they learn how to type using computers.  Writing instruction should begin with letters of the alphabet and also include numbers.  Handwriting should include clear typeface writing as well as cursive writing.  Beginning student writers should learn what words mean and proper grammatical usage through rote experential learning, including memorization, in order to program proper written and spoken communication principles.  Developing legible penmanship should also be achieved although that is something I never was able to accomplish.

Once children have mastered their ABC's and basic literacy they should be encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings in writing.  Developing a love of writing in children is particularly important at an early age as it has a better chance of being sustained and achieving positive educational and career results later in life.  Children should be encouraged to express their imagination and feelings in writing and develop age appropriate vocabularies for expressing such sentiments on paper and electronically.  Children should be encouraged to write thank you notes or emails when they receive gifts or awards and to request items in writing from different organizations.  

As students get older and, hopefully more mature, they should be able to articulate complex thoughts and feelings in their writing.    During the writing process they should learn to spell correctly, enjoy referring to dictionaries and thesauri, and strive to make their readers want to continue reading through succinct and active voice prose.  Students should be able to point and out and identify the strengths and weaknesses of texts they are reading.  Once they reach the high school level, they should also have developed the capability to conduct research using high quality source materials and documenting their research findings through endnotes and bibliographies.  Regular and disciplined reading will help students of all ages sustain their intellectual curiosity and enhance their willingness to write whether by hand or electronically.  Writing is a task that can bring lifelong benefits and writing effectively is the way to achieve optimum professional and personal advancement while enhancing and sustaining the life of the mind.  When you write you should reflect the entire spectrum of life's experiences and emotions:  anger, anxiety, belief, despair,  euphoria,  faith, fear, hesitation, jubilation, and all other feelings.  Writing can be incredibly therapeutic and creative and it can also be destructive to yourself and others.  Treat writing with the utmost respect and  you will have an enduring friend.

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Education and Reading: A Vital Imperative

Posted by Bert Chapman on Monday, April 23, 2012 7:47:34 PM
This will be the second in my series of blog posting about education.  A few weeks ago, I presented some general observations on educational policy and today I want to focus on reading as the first "r" or the reading, writing, and arithmetic triumvirate of core educational values.  After commenting on these other two foundations of education, I'll make observations on specific educational subjects Americans should have some knowledge of in order to become informed, moral, and critical thinking citizens in subsequent blog postings.

Reading must begin at home with the family.  It must be a core value of the parents that is transmitted to their children.  Children should see their parents read on a regular basis whether it's the newspaper, magazines, books, or various electronic readers.  Parents should also spend time reading to their children on a regular basis and ample educational studies prove that children whose parents read to them are more successful in school.  Parents should also encourage children to read aloud at home and learn how to pronounce and spell words correctly as well as define what they mean.  Through their reading parents should strive to teach their children the importance of sound moral values and reading from the Bible, and demonstrating biblical tenets in their own lives, is the best way for children to start on the right path and have less chance of deviating from personal integrity as they get older.  Parents must incorporate reading into all aspects of children's educational experiences.  Children should develop a joy for reading on their own and parents should take their children to their nearest public library to sign up for a membership at the earliest possible date and encourage them to accept and enjoy the responsibility of borrowing books and returning them on time.  Church going parents should also contribute to their church's library and ensure that it has age appropriate books for children that will inculcate Christian principles they will enjoy reading about and emulating.

Successful reading must be based on phonics instead of trendy and failed liberal reading pedagogical theories such as "see and say."
Achieving reading comprehension requires reflection and contemplation so it's preferable that reading be done in as quiet a physical environment as possible.  Fortunately, the proliferation of ebook readers such as Kindles makes it possible to do prolonged and serious reading even in noisy environments such as airports or subway trains.  Besides taking their children to libraries, parents should also encourage their children to browse and purchase books and bookstores.  Children should be encouraged to read about subjects they enjoy whether it be dinosaurs, trains, gardens, and art but they should also be encouraged to read widely on a wide variety of subject to enhance their mind and parents should play an active but non-intrusive role in this reading by discussing the contents of this reading with their children.   This is far more likely to keep children from falling onto the wagon of liberal foolishness.  Including book buying in family budgetary expenditures is a far better use of financial resources and investment in future individual and national development than alcohol, tobacco, fancy cars, overpriced real estate, or an egocentric obsession with social status
.
As children advance through primary school and into secondary school, parents should encourage them to read local and non-local newspapers and magazines to learn about and analyze current events.  Parents should also discuss these events with children and provide their, hopefully conservative, insights on the significance or triviality of these events.  The growth of the Internet makes it possible for readers to learn, analyze, and critically think about events in areas far from their homes.  For instance, if a high school student, is studying some aspect of European history, he or she should read current European newspaper articles or view digital resources from European national libraries or academic libraries to view primary source material on the topic(s) they are studying.
Such reading should give children an enhanced appreciation of the providential exceptionalism enjoyed by the U.S. and other anglospheric countries while also becoming aware of the strengths and weaknesses of all other global countries, cultures, and peoples.
 
We are truly blessed in our country to have access to such a wide variety of reading material in multiple formats and for constitutional freedoms that encourage us to reach our  God-given intellectual potential.  Reading is a vital educational imperative that contributes to future national economic, political, and social/moral development when it's based on Judeo-Christian moral foundations and includes the active involvement of parents in their children's intellectual, moral, and social development.
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The Campaign Begins

Posted by Bert Chapman on Saturday, April 14, 2012 9:53:21 AM
With Rick Santorum suspending his campaign this past week, it is now clear that Mitt Romney will be the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.  Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul may continue battling for various egocentric reasons, but the election this fall will between Romney and Obama.  It has been a challenging but refining campaign for Romney, who has improved his skills as the campaign went on and successfully adapted to changing circumstances.  The fact of the matter is that a solid plurality of GOP primary voters voted for Romney and he was not selected by a mythical party establishment conspiracy.  None of the other GOP presidential candidates was able to assemble a sufficiently financed and disciplined campaign organizational structure or has the ability to appeal beyond the conservative base.

This is a decisive election in American presidential campaign history.  It's importance will rival, if not surpass, other seminal elections such as 1860, 1912, 1932, and 1980.  Nothing less than the future direction of our country and its economic, geopolitical, and moral direction is at stake.  We can choose the continuing statist path pursued by Barack Obama which means greater governmental control of the economy, greater national debt, high unemployment, empower federal government at the expense  of individual autonomy, the continued promotion of morally depraved lifestyle choices such as abortion on demand, sexual deviance, hostility to Judeo-Christian religious belief, and increasing vulnerability to  the multiple foreign threats facing us.  Fortunately, in Mitt Romney we have the alternative of taking the tough but painful steps to restore national fiscal discipline, create more jobs, pursuing policies favoring life and traditional morality and are friendly to Judeo-Christian values, empower individuals to reach their God-given potential, give states the leverage to implement policies best suited to their needs as granted by the Constitution's 10th Amendment, and pursue a foreign policy that vigorously promotes and defends American national interests and values even if this is not popular with the chattering domestic and international classes of the leftist foreign policy aristocracy.

Except for the murders of Osama Bin Laden and other prominent Al Qaida terrorist leaders, as the result of policies adopted and implemented during the Bush Administration, Barack Obama can claim no positive or beneficial foreign and domestic policy accomplishments.  National debt is up, the unemployment rate is up, gasoline prices have skyrocketed at a level not seen since the egregiously inept Carter Administration due to the administration's delusional utopian faith in green energy and its ideological antagonism to fossil fuels.  Despite this presidency being an abject failure, Barack Obama and his minions will be helped by the bully pulpit of the presidency, the obsequious loyalty of most of the traditional media, their ability to raise tremendous amounts of money from unions and their most ideologically committee liberal followers, and their willingness to engage in unrestricted personal assaults on Romney and other individuals who seek to overturn their radical leftist agenda.

As Republicans, we must take the battle to the Obama Administration and wage the political war without mercy or regret.  We offer the American electorate a clear choice.  Choose the continued course of American decline offered by Barack Obama or choose the chance for restoring national economic solvency (painful though it will be) and the potential for a new renaissance of American economic prosperity offered by Mitt Romney.  Choose continuing  hostility to the traditional moral values characteristic of the Obama administration's social policies, or return to supporting traditional moral values and implementing them into domestic and international public policy.  No one with a scintilla of intellectual coherence can claim that there is no difference between the visions Barack Obama and Mitt Romney offer for America.  This is as black and white a presidential election as I have witnessed in my five decades of life.

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Lugar vs Mourdock

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 7:58:12 PM
Despite being one of the Senate's most respected leaders and an internationally recognized statesman, Indiana Senator Richard Lugar is being seriously challenged by Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock.  Some of this is due to frustration at current national political and economic problems, but most of Mourdock's challenge is motivated by his self-aggrandizing spite, the intellectually superficial solutions he offers, and the absolute intellectual vacuity of many of his followers in understanding politics and American government.

Let's address the bogus charge that Lugar is Barack Obama's favorite Republican.  When Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004, he joined Lugar on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Obama sought out Lugar for guidance, which is common for a junior legislator to do, and went with Lugar on a trip to see nuclear nonproliferation activities being carried out in the Russian Federation. Such trips are a common part of congressional committees oversight responsibilities.  Judged by the multiple failures of Obama's foreign policy he did not absorb Senator Lugar's wisdom but at least he made an attempt to grasp for enlightenment.  The public affairs periodical The National Journal publishes an annual list of congressional support for and opposition to presidential legislation.  Lugar ranked as the 37th most conservative Senator in the National Journal's 2011 rankings ahead of the following Republican Senators:

Lamar Alexander, TN
Roy Blunt, MO
Scott Brown, MA
Thad Cochran, MS
Susan Collins, ME
Lindsey Graham, SC
Mike Johans, NE
Mark Kirk, IL
Lisa Murkowski, AL
Olympia Snowe, ME

Incidentally, Senator Dan Coats ranked 25th.  Overall, Lugar  has consistently opposed Obama initiatives in health care, energy, job creation, and numerous other policy arenas.  Mourdock's simplistic claims of Lugar's supposed loyalty to Obama are flat out wrong and designed to appeal to intellectual lightweights who don't want to engage in serious public policy analysis but enjoy visceral rhetorical bashing using terms such as Republican in Name Only (RINO) when they themselves have little if any substantive understanding of Republican Party principles.

An example of Mourdock spouting simplistic solutions without offering credible policy alternatives is reflected in his advocacy of abolishing the Commerce Department.  This agency's responsibilities include conducting the constitutionally mandated decennial population census and critical economic research such as determining weather growth, forecasting and monitoring the effects of weather including tornadoes, climatic and oceanic research including tsunami warning and response, patent and trademark approval, and promoting international trade.  How does Mourdock propose the federal government address these issues?  Does he favor transferring these responsibilities to  other federal agencies, state governments, the private sector, or governmental-private sector partnerships?

Mourdock also criticizes Lugar's support for earmarks.  Many earmarks can justifiably be criticized as promoting wasteful spending and serving no constructive purpose.  However, many earmarks also enhance the public good by creating high-quality jobs and enhancing state and national research and development.  Which Indiana earmarks does Mourdock propose eliminating and does he favor turning Congress' constitutionally derived power of the purse entirely over to the executive branch?  Would he favor repealing the nearly $2.9 million Lugar transportation earmark that enabled Lafayette CityBus to purchase hyrbrid buses in 2009?  Does Mourdock favor repealing a $300,000 earmark Lugar obtained in 2010 to enable Tipton to upgrade its drinking water and wastewater infrastructure?  Does Mourdock favor repealing the 2010 earmark totalling $2.4 Lugar obtained for an Indiana defense contractor to develop Antiballistic Windshield Armor for the Army?  Does Mourdock favor repealing the $100,000 earmark Lugar obtained in 2010 for Beech Grove's Police Department to upgrade its communication equipment.  Earmark critics such as the conservative Citizens Against Government Waste say earmarks represent less than 0.5% of federal spending.

Giving Richard Mourdock an upset primary victory may provide temporary visceral satisfaction to his intellectually challenged enthusiasts.  It will, however, increase the likelihood of Democrat Joe Donnelly winning the fall election and promoting a pro-Democratic agenda for the next six years.  Richard  Lugar, although not a perfect conservative, is a sagacious and principled leader who offers substantive and generally conservative leadership on the whole spectrum of public policy issues facing our country.  Indiana will be the subject of well-deserved ridicule if we let him go down to defeat to a disgruntled and self-serving egoist like Richard Mourdock.
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Trayvon Martin Case and the Rush to Judgment

Posted by Bert Chapman on Saturday, March 31, 2012 1:56:54 PM
Last month's murder of Trayvon Martin in suburban Orlando Florida is a personal and family tragedy, but it's significance and underlying cause remain obscured and distorted by inaccurate media portraits and a rush to judgment by the scions of leftist political agitation. The fact that notorious race hustlers and consummate con artists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have gotten involved in this controversy should arouse innate suspicion in anyone truly concerned about this case.  Jackson and Sharpton don't give a rip about Martin and his family.  They only care about maintaining their discredited political careers and enhancing their media visibility as a way of distracting public attention from Barack Obama's failed presidency.

The suspect in Martin's murder, George Zimmerman, has been tarred and feathered before a proper criminal investigation into this case's circumstances has occurred.  Zimmerman appears to have some mental health problems and a history of run ins with authorities.  Martin himself is far from an innocent victim having been suspended from school and having traces of marijuana found in  his school bag.  Zimmerman was involved in a neighborhood watch group which was undoubtedly created due to security concerns in his neighborhood.  Unfortunately, media portrayals of this event have instinctively trotted out the race and racial profiling canard without investigating criminal activity in the Orlando area.

The FBI's authoritative Crime in the United States:  Uniform Crime Reports contains some revealing statistics about crime in the Orlando metropolitan area for 2010 and preliminary data for 2011.  These include:

Violent Crime 2010 1,239
"                   " 2011  1,320-A 6.13% increase

Murder 2010 10
"         " 2011 15-A 50% increase!

Rape 2010 49
"    "  2011 50-A 2% increase

Robbery 2010 315
"          " 2011 329-A 4.25% increase

Aggravated Assault 2010 865
"                             " 2011 926-A 6.58% increase

Property Crime 2010 7,757
"                     " 2011 7,931-A 2.19% increase

Burglary 2010 1,882
"           " 2011 1,900-A 0.94% increase

Larceny 2010 5,287
"          " 2011 5,457-A 3.07% increase

Orlando motor vehicle theft and arson incidents declined in 2010 and 2011 according to these same FBI statistics.  These Orlando crime incident increases,  must be contrasted with declines in some of these crime incidents in Miami, Tallahassee, and St. Petersburg for this time period.  While Zimmerman may have personally been overzealous in his reaction to Martin, he was on solid ground in wanting to take no chances with his personal safety due to the increased crime in the Orlando area these statistics demonstrate.

Additional insight into youthful criminal activity his provided by the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics which is an authoritative annual statistical compendium produced by the Justice Dept's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the University of Albany.  According to this work, during 2010 there were 10,177,907 nationwide arrests for criminal offenses.  Whites were arrested in 69.4% of these cases; blacks in 26.0% of these cases, and other ethnic groups accounting for the remainder of these arrests.  These statistics also reveal that 55% of robbery arrests; 40.1% of weapons arrests; and 48.7% of murder and non-negligent manslaughter arrests for this year were blacks.  Additional revelations occur when you investigate the number of arrests for offenders under 18.  In 2010, 1,281,738 arrests occurred in this age group with 66.3% of suspects arrested being white and 31.8% being black.  Within this dataset, however,  56.2% of murder and non-negligent manslaughter arrests; 66.7% of robbery arrests, 42.3% of motor vehicle theft arrests; and 60.5% of violent crime involved blacks under 18.

These figures cannot be dismissed as the results of racism or racial profiling.  The victims of these crimes represent all races and this criminal behavior sadly reflects a society that has embraced moral relativism and the decline of stable two parent families.  These developments have accelerated since the advent of "Great Society" programs during the Johnson Administration which encouraged the breakup of the nuclear family in order to increase individuals dependence on governmental social assistance programs.  It is only when we begin to reverse these policies and promote stable and functional two-parent families as part of local, state, and national social policy that these disparities in criminal arrest and incarceration rates will be reversed.

Barack Obama and his administration could have used political and moral capital to make these necessary policy changes. Unfortunately, he and his administration have decided to appeal to their leftist ideological core base and decided to promote the discredited euphemism of a national conversation about race (which actually means to promote the myth of institutionalized societal racism and the role of blacks as helpless victims dependent on governmental assistance) instead of encouraging all Americans, regardless of their race, to be responsible law-abiding citizens striving to reach their God-given potential.    
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More Obama Administration Foreign Policy Incompetence

Posted by Bert Chapman on Saturday, March 31, 2012 1:19:16 PM
This past week has been another case study in the Obama Administration's foreign policy incompetence.  Meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and not realizing that their conversation was being recorded, the arrogant and narcissistic Obama told his Russian counterpart, that this was his last election and that once the election is over he would make a deal with the Russians on missile defense.  Such a deal, of course, would involve surrendering our missile defense programs, to protracted Russian objections and make ourselves defenseless against missile defense threats from Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea.  Medvedev, being the dutiful serf boy to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, replied "I will tell Vladimir."  This culminates this administration's failed policies toward Russia which began with the mythical belief that we could somehow reset relations with Russia, continued to belief that KGB apparatchik Putin would be a collaborator in promoting democratic reform, and that Russia would cooperate with us on keeping Iran and North Korea from obtaining a nuclear weapons arsenal.  Barack Obama has failed to realize that Russia, under Putin, is becoming an energy superpower and seeks to use its wealth to reassert its Soviet era power by threatening former Soviet era countries that refuse to submit to its geopolitical dictates.

The flip side of this incompetence was also demonstrated when revelations came out that the Obama Administration is likely responsible for leaking information that Israel was seeking an agreement with Azerbaijan to use that country as a base for a possible airstrike against Iran's nascent nuclear arsenal.  Azerbaijan is directly north/northwest of Iran, and would give Israel much shorter and easier access to launch aerial and/or missile assaults against Iran's nuclear infrastructure.  It would make it unnecessary for Israel to cross the airspace of several countries to launch such an attack and would probably result in decreased Israeli casualties.  Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is naive in thinking Iran's nuclear dreams can be stopped with even coercive economic sanctions and believes it iss better to stab a stalwart friend in the back to keep them from defending themselves, and ourselves for that matter, while acquiescing in Iran's attempts to develop nuclear weapons.
 
Such incompetence endangers our security, the security of our allies, and international security.  In conducting foreign policy you must look out for number one and the interests of your friends instead of engaging in apology tours or thinking the international community is going to solve its most intractable disputes through peaceful means.
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Illinois Victory and Etch-A-Sketch Comment

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 6:57:52 PM
With this weekend victory in Puerto Rico and last night's victory in Illinois, Mitt Romney took another step closer to becoming the Republican presidential nominee.  This morning's endorsement by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is another positive indication that prominent GOP members are recognizing the reality that Romney is best suited to taking on Obama and returning the presidency to competent and moral stewardship.

Unfortunately, Romney campaign messaging was thrown off stride this morning when a senior Romney advisor said that the campaign would "take an etch-a-sketch" approach to the general election campaign and supposedly "discard" partisan rhetoric.  Increasingly desperate Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum campaigns, along with the Obama campaign, jumped on this like a cat attacks catnip.  These individuals and organizations claimed it reflects a janus-faced persona by Romney and that he will say and do anything to win the election.  This sentiment, of course, is flat out nonsense!  Primary campaigns are geared toward winning the support of a party's core supporters in order to win the primary election and gain the right to compete in the general election.  Anyone who knows anything about American politics, and that apparently doesn't include people in the Gingrich and Santorum campaigns, realizes that general election campaign strategy requires balancing appeals to your party's base with rhetoric and policies designed to appeal to the broader electorate who are not directly affiliated with your party but may be receptive to your candidate's policy proposals and political message.   Neither Gingrich or Santorum have the financial resources, personal appeal, or organizational management to win the GOP presidential nomination and appeal to voters beyond the base of GOP primary voters.

It's time for Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, and their followers to accept the reality that a solid and decisive plurality of Republican primary voters want Mitt Romney to be our presidential nominee.  Consequently, we need to concentrate our resources and energies on defeating the failed presidency of Barack Obama despite the estimated $1 billion in resources he and his Chicago cronies will spend to lie about his failed record and seek to destroy the hopeful and conservative policy alternatives Mitt Romney proposes for America.
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Education Principles and Policy

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, March 13, 2012 7:19:45 PM
Education again is drawing attention in this presidential election cycle.  This topic is of perennial importance to national, state, and local governance as well as to economic development and personal and societal character formation.  I support public and private education having been the beneficiary of both of these sectors.  I am a senior professor at one of the nation's premier public research universities and am blessed for the opportunities this gives me.

Concern about education is part of my genetic code.  Both of my parents were teachers.  My father taught chemistry at a public high school and my mother was an English and Education professor and two evangelical Christian liberal arts universities.  Both integrated their Christian faith into their pedagogical activities without being the targets of militant secularists or sundry leftist ethnic or gender lifestyle choice groupies harassing them.  I grew up in a public primary and secondary educational system, did my undergraduate work at one of the Christian universities my mom taught at, worked for and received masters degrees from two secular universities, and have been employed professionally at two different secular universities in Texas and Indiana.

It's vitally important for conservatives, whether they are Christians or not, to be actively involved in supporting education and participating in educational policymaking whether it is in religious or secular settings.  A key reason why so many secular educational institutions have lost their moral foundation and do not produce the intelligent and moral students our country urgently needs is that many Christians have sat on their sanctimonious posteriors and not gotten involved with local school boards and university boards of trustees when they decided to embrace immoral and intellectually shallow beliefs such as diversity, gender studies, and sexual promiscuity.  Conservatives need to promote the active involvement of themselves and other conservatives in the liberal and secular wastelands of education to redeem the time and not sit cowering like cowards in sectarian schools or home schooling.  We have to participate in the marketplace of ideas and debate if our beliefs are to be heard and have a chance of being implemented into public policy.

The ultimate foundation for educational success is not generous governmental appropriations.  It includes highly trained and motivated teachers whose primary concern is educating skilled and moral students instead of engaging in union activism, administrators who are motivated to produce the best out of their teachers and students, and parents (preferably mothers and fathers) who have their personal acts together sufficiently to demonstrate to their children the vital importance of educational success in molding personal moral character and having the ability to work successfully in the high-skill jobs essential to national economic prosperity and personal economic stability.  Our educational system must be laser focused on creating environments where students can reach their optimum God-given  intellectual and moral potential.  Public or private education cannot tolerate or waste finite resources on students from dysfunctional families who act out their social deviance in the classroom.  Consistent and strict discipline, including corporal punishment, must be an integral part of America's educational system.

Over the next several weeks, I'll be making additional postings on desirable educational policy attributes including curriculum and the vital imperative of Judeo-Christian moral education in shaping American educational policy.
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What's a Lecherous Georgetown Law Student to Do?

Posted by Bert Chapman on Saturday, March 03, 2012 5:13:36 PM
Sandra Fluke is a third year Georgetown University law student who thinks she's entitled to Georgetown providing $3,000 worth of contraception annually to support her "health insurance needs."  Since Georgetown is at least nominally a  Catholic school, though one that has compromised with secularism to pursue worldly institutional prestige, it adheres to Catholic Church teachings by refusing to include contraception in its student health insurance policy coverage.  "Poor" Miss Fluke, inspired by the Obama Administration's nefarious mandate to make religious institutions include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance policies, decided to take her song and dance act to a congressional committee.  This was not an official congressional committee, but an ad hoc group of abortionist apologists lead by none other than former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  I guess Pelosi and her cohorts didn't want to see their ideological soulmate torn to shreds by conservative House committee members and have her precious self-esteem annihilated.  After all, abortion is the secularist feminists' soteriological sacrament.

Fluke claimed that Georgetown's refusal to provide contraception coverage was injurious to her health.  Such a claim is patent nonsense and reflective of a narcissistic self-absorbed brat who thinks she's entitled to live any way she wants with the financial support of those who disagree with her lifestyle choices.  She probably got this attitude from egregiously incompetent and morally vacuous parents who encouraged her to "live her dreams" and didn't bother to teach her right from wrong in any area of life with sexual morality being the biggest example of this.  I don't know whether she is as sexually active as commentator Rush Limbaugh charged, but Fluke should know that she can purchase other health insurance coverage from the private sector if she REALLY needs it.  Better yet, she should actually experience the benefits of chastity outside of marriage and learn that, if she does, she will experience lower financial costs, better gynecological health, and a more fulfilling marriage if she can actually find a man foolish enough to marry such a self-serving narcissist.

Fluke should spend her time Shepardizing court cases and practicing her moot court skills, instead of promoting a promiscuous lifestyle or "reproductive health rights" which is a euphemism for promoting abortion and unfettered sexual activity .  She has obviously been indoctrinated by the women's studies programs afflicting much of academe into believing that women should not have to take individual moral responsibility for their sexual behavior. (By the way, men should also take individual moral responsibility for their sexual behavior!) This has been particularly demonstrated by pressure from militant feminist groups on advertisers to stop advertising on Limbaugh's show.  Sadly, some advertisers appear to be capitulating to these all to predictable leftist temper tantrums.  It doesn't help matters when President Obama calls Fluke and encourages her in her advocacy of morally degenerate behavior.  Until recently, most political leaders would have ignored Fluke or denounced her for the self-serving grandstanding fraud that she is.  Obviously, Obama must have been inspired by the most recent revelations of John Kennedy's sexual promiscuity and by his eager willingness to fire up his leftist feminist base in this election year in which he will have to run on a record of abject failure and continued national decline.

Hopefully, Fluke will experience her Andy Warholesque 15 minutes of fame and disappear into obscurity doing community organizing for sybaritic sycophants in some degenerate dive in the world's remotest corners.  She is nothing more than a professional leftist agitator and will ultimately prove to be a disgrace to any profession but the world's oldest! 

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Santorum's Inconsistencies

Posted by Bert Chapman on Thursday, February 23, 2012 9:36:00 PM
Rick Santorum has attracted the support of many evangelicals due to his strong defense of traditional Christian values.  However, Protestants should be troubled by his ultramontane rhetoric which makes him appear "more Catholic than the Pope."  The most troubling demonstration of this came in a 2008 speech he made to Ave Maria University.  In this speech he proclaimed:

  We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian
   ethic, sure the Catholics  had some influence, but this was a protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline    
   Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone
   from the world of Christianity as I see it.

There is some truth to this statement but it also applies to American Roman Catholicism.  No branch of American or global Christianity has been immune from secularism and moral relativism.  We see this as all sectors of Christendom have embraced non-Biblical norms of sexual expression or sought to compromise with secular beliefs in sexuality and other areas of life. What is troubling is Santorum's apparent embrace of Catholicism as the sole acceptable form of Christianity.  Has he not learned anything from the Protestant Reformation or developments within Catholicism since Vatican II?  The conservative movement has experienced significant success as conservative Protestants and Catholics have taken their biblically based views to cooperate together on issues such as fighting abortion and promoting traditional marriage against the insidious onslaughts of individuals and organizations opposed to these core moral beliefs.  It would be an absolute tragedy for conservative values and incorporating conservatism into governmental policymaking, if Santorum takes the position that his interpretation of Catholicism is the only acceptable expression of Judeo-Christian political activism.

Santorum also raised secularist eyebrows when he said Satan was attacking America.  I'm an American exceptionalist as much as the next conservative, but Santorum needs to understand that Satan's evil attacks transcend all national, racial, and gender boundaries.  Truly effective exponents of a biblical world view must take a global perspective of Christ's redemptive message and not engage in a narrow nationally centered fixation on evil.  Ongoing events in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and numerous other locales demonstrate that the devil and his minions are not limited to the United States.

Santorum has also gone a sad metamorphosis in his attitudes toward Mitt Romney.  Four years ago, he enthusiastically endorsed Romney proclaiming that Romney spoke with clarity and conviction, that he knew what being commander in chief means, that he possessed deep national security knowledge, and that Romney was the candidate who would best represent our conservative values.  Unfortunately, Rick Santorum has forgotten his past wise words and let his own lust for power, and the desire for avenging his 2006 Pennsylvania Senate loss, to cloud and warp his judgment.  You can see this when he lamely attacks Romney for the Massachusetts health care plan, even though Romney has repeatedly made it clear that this plan was intended solely for Massachusetts and was not a template for national health care policymaking.

Despite his many laudable attributes, Rick Santorum will be unable to appeal beyond a limited ideologically conservative base if he becomes the GOP nominee.  Consequently, we will be subjected to another four years of Barack Obama in the White House and potentially a reprise of the heavily Democratic 111th Congress.   Mitt Romney has the calm reassuring and resolute leadership this country needs as it enters perilous domestic and international waters brought about by Barack Obama's egregious incompetence.
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Santorum's Surge

Posted by Bert Chapman on Saturday, February 18, 2012 10:27:19 AM
Rick Santorum has enjoyed a remarkable surge in the GOP presidential primaries thanks to his victories in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri although there was fairly low turnout in all of these races.  There is much to admire about Santorum including his strong stands on national security issues with particular emphasis on his visionary warnings on the threat posed by Iran.  I'm glad he has partially called Ron Paul to task on this.  Santorum is also a staunch defender of traditional moral values including the rights of the unborn and for his vigorous defense of traditional marriage.  Unfortunately, his unswerving criticism of contraception, will not go over well with swing voters who do not see women as living for the purpose of being baby factories. Mitt Romney has rightly pointed out that birth control is working and its pointless to try to reverse the Supreme Court's Griswold decision.

Santorum, unfortunately, has economic policy weaknesses which make him unsuited to be the President at this critical economic time. While he is right to emphasize the importance of manufacturing in our economic activity, he has a nostalgic and romantic view about manufacturing's preeminent role in the U.S. economy which no longer fits current and emerging national and international economic realities.  Conservatives rightly criticize the Obama Administration for favoring "green industries" in their economic policymaking as evidenced by the Solyndra fiasco.  We should also criticize Santorum for his giving political preference to traditional manufacturing in his economic policymaking.  The government should create conditions and establish policies favorable to all sectors of economic activity without showing favor to any single sector.  An article in the current National Review online also criticizes Santorum for his sentimental and nostalgic view toward working class Reagan Democrats which it contends no longer exist as they did in 1980 and have become more secularized in their values.

There is also criticism of Santorum's support for earmarks.  Some earmarks can be beneficial and some are true examples of pork. One of Santorum's most troubling examples of earmark support was his encouraging Cheney University and another historically black college in Pennsylvania to come to a  Department of Education seminar to learn about how to get more federal money.  It is true that many of these universities, created by the 1890 Morrill Land Grant, have been financially underfunded.  We must also remember though that these universities are a shameful legacy of racial segregation which was legally concluded by passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Since traditional public and private higher education has been desegregrated for several decades, the presence of historically black colleges remains an example of promoting ethnic separatism and they should be closed and their students, staff, and faculty absorbed into existing universities within their respective states.

You can criticize Santorum for his support of earmarks such as the Bridge to Nowhere and, in particular, his support for the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug Act which has increased our budget deficit when prescription drug reform legislation should have been enacted that would have created more competition in the pharmaceutical industry.  Because Santorum is from organized labor heavy Pennsylvania, he has opposed right to work legislation which is critically important to enhancing economic growth and prosperity.  As a congressman, he opposed the NAFTA agreement which has brought significant benefits to the U.S. and has tended to favor protectionist measures in his career.  More than ever, we need a President who will actively seek to promote the ability of U.S. companies to export their products and services to all countries of the world and push for more free trade agreements. Rick Santorum is not that individual while Mitt Romney is.

Santorum is also off-base in his criticisms of the Massachusetts health care plan Romney introduced while governor.  Massachusetts was confronted with the problem of numerous people trying to exploit the state's health care system by not having their own health insurance by trying to get free emergency room care for non-threatening medical conditions.  Romney, working with the conservative Heritage Foundation, sought to develop a plan that would fit state needs and the perceived desires of Massachusett's population.  This is perfectly consistent with the federalist principles enunciated in the Constitution's 10th Amendment and is not a precursor to the one-size-fits-all monstrosity Obama is seeking to impose.  One can legitimately debate how well or poorly this program has worked since Romney left his gubernatorial responsibilities, but responsibility for this program's continued performance rests on the shoulders of Deval Patrick who succeeded Romney as Massachusetts governor.  Santorum and other GOP critics of Romney health care policy continually forget that he has said this program was never intended for national application and that he would repeal Obamacare if he becomes President.  Santorum also needs to present credible alternatives for reducing unnecessary medical expenses which drive up public and private sector health care costs instead of sanctimoniously criticizing Romney.  For instance, what is Santorum's stance on Paul Ryan's entitlement reform proposals?

Santorum does not have the executive experience and temperament necessary to be President.  Although he says things that make conservatives feel good, a warm glow in our hearts is not enough to be an effective President or appeal to individuals who do not adhere to all tenets of conservative ideology.   I could easily see Santorum as Secretary of Health and Human Services, perhaps Secretary of Defense, and especially as a director of family policy within the White House.  His personality, character, and professional connections would all serve him well in those positions.

The next President must be a strong and decisive leader with executive and managerial experience who can reach beyond the conservative bedrock to offer pragmatic and principled solutions to pressing national policy programs and to emerging threats to U.S. national security interests.   Unpopular though this may be in Michigan, Romney was right to criticize the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler because those two companies had become bloated and inefficient and needed to go through normal bankruptcy procedures. The next President must also be, in the words of the late William F. Buckley, the most electable conservative and someone who can repair the damage done by Barack Obama and begin the long and painful process of restoring American exceptionalism.  Mitt Romney is that individual and I urge Michigan primary voters to support him on February 28.
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Syrian and Iranian Crises

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:59:51 PM
The situation is Syria is truly horrific.  A sadistic dictatorial regime lead by Bashir Assad clings to power by massacring its own citizens.  The world issues its usual rhetorical though restrained denunciations of these crimes.  Some call for international military intervention, but others question whether the Syrians are worth western blood and treasure.

Just over a year ago, the Arab Spring uprisings began toppling long-standing regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya while also impacting other parts of the Arab world including Bahrain, Jordan, and Yemen.  Many of the the revolutionaries in these countries said they wanted democracy but what do they mean by democracy?  Unfortunately, their definition of democracy does not include western beliefs such as freedom of religion, speech, property rights, the pursuit of happiness, or other hard-earned constitutional rights.  Democracy in the Arab world means the freedom to engage in whatever personal, religious, or tribal vendetta you want to without worrying about punishment.  It also means, as seems sadly apparent in Egypt, the desire to impose Islamist governments upon these countries as the Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to do and blaming Jews and Christians for all the systemic problems in their countries.

Syria dates back to biblical times and was under Ottoman Control until the end of World War I.  Syria and Lebanon were under French control until 1946 when they became independent.  Syria's first quarter century of sovereignty was a succession of failed and unstable governments.  In 1970, Hafez Assad, the father of the current dictator came to power and imposed a brutal stability on Syria for three decades until his death in 2000.  Hafez Assad fought disastrous wars against Israel, played a big role in plunging Lebanon into civil war and occupying that country for several decades, was a sponsor of terrorism including the Oct. 1983 Beirut bombings which killed numerous  U.S. marines, and an ideological bosom buddy of the Iranian regime.  Bashir continued his dad's policies supporting anti-Israeli terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizballah, probably giving some level of comfort to Iraqi forces fighting our troops in Iraq as they sought to bring stability after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and seeking help from North Korea in building a nuclear weapons which the Israelis, thankfully, destroyed in 2007.

We have no idea what the anti-Assad forces in Syria stand for, but history and contemporary events give us little cause for optimism.  As long as countries in this region remain shrouded in Islamist obscurantism which seeks to blame Israel and the west for all of their problems, there is little point in wasting our energy on their behalf.  We need to concentrate on maintaining the damage from these revolutions to Israel and to guarding our larger geopolitical interests such as defeating terrorism and promoting international access to oil and other commodities essential for maintaining international economic growth.

Iran is the primary threat to us and our allies in this region.  While it would be nice to believe that the latest round of international economic sanctions will stop the mullahs from developing a nuclear weapons arsenal, we should not get our hopes up to high.  This is a regime that only  understands brute force, doesn't care about the fate of its people, and will do whatever it takes to stay in power and impose its apocalyptic vision of Shia Islamic theology on the Mideast.  We need to tell the American people and the international community that sustained military force and regime change are the only ways to remove the Iranian threat to international civilization.  Democracy as we practice it in the west is not likely to occur in  the Middle East outside of Israel and we should quit clinging to the fantasy that the Arab Spring will serve as a harbinger for greater maturity in the political behavior of most Arab countries.
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Newt Gingrich's Moon Colony and the Geopolitics of Space

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, February 08, 2012 7:04:18 PM
During a recent GOP presidential debate in Florida, Newt Gingrich was criticized for saying the U.S. should have a manned colony on the moon within the next few years.  Gingrich can engage in more than his fair share of hyperbolic rhetoric but, in this case, he is on target.  Space should be regarded as another area of geopolitical contention instead of an idealized arena for international scientific cooperation.  The Soviet Union entered the space race for to gain strategic military advantage over the United States.  China has slowly but steadily been increasing its military space activities and seeks to have a manned mission to the moon in 2020.  Numerous works, including my own Space Warfare and Defense:  A Historical Encyclopedia and Research Guide (ABC-Clio, 2008) and Everett Dolman's Astropolitics:  Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Frank Cass, 2001), (both available via Amazon.com) demonstrate that the U.S. and other countries consider space a venue for military competition.  Taylor and Francis press publishes the scholarly journal Astropolitics which examines space's strategic aspects and the Air Force's professional military journal Air and Space Power Journal regularly publishes articles on military users of aerospace forces. Numerous areas of U.S. military policymaking are directed toward space including space command branches within the Air Force and Army and a similar branch of the Navy.  Air University, the Air Force's professional military educational institution, conducts significant research on military aspects of space operations and presidential administrations of both parties periodically issue National Space Policy documents.

Our current fiscal constraints, limit our ability to pursue military objectives in space.   However, we would be ill-advised if we let China or any other power dominate space and cosmic territories like the moon.  Space is vital to U.S. and world economic growth, access to natural resources on the moon and planets such as Mars,  and international security and the U.S. must do whatever is required to maintain command of the heavenly commons.  Even with our financial restrictions, we remain a bold nation and we would have not reached our level of national power and prosperity without aspiring to achieve big dreams and accomplish large objectives.
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Anti-Christian Sentiment Run Amuck

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, February 07, 2012 7:19:35 PM
Recent legal, political, and cultural developments have brought the issue of anti-Christian bigotry to public attention.  This is a long overdue development.  Today, a three judge panel of the notoriously imbecilic and immoral 9th Circuit Court ruled that California voters express desire in 2008 to limit marriage to a man and a woman through their passage of Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.  The law remains in effect for now but it will now stop the purveyors of sexual perversity from continuing their battle to impose their consciously chosen lifestyles on the country through the courts given their repeated failure to achieve their immoral objectives at the ballot box.  This case will likely be decided by the Supreme Court in the next year or two.

Anti-Christian animus also occurs in many sectors of academe.  Just over two years ago, I  had the audacity to point out that widespread societal acceptance of homosexuality would have unpleasant economic and public health consequences.  While my university employer defended my First Amendment rights, I was targeted by militant "gay" rights activists who urged that I be fired and/or lose my tenure because I refused to support their efforts to ideologically indoctrinate other students and faculty.  Vanderbilt University is currently experiencing another example of untrammeled anti-Christian indoctrination.  The university's President has decided that Christian student organizations such as the Christian Legal Society must be disbanded because their core beliefs include prohibiting individuals who do not adhere to Christian beliefs and lifestyle practices from holding leadership positions in their groups.  If Congress wants to get this moron to cease and desist, they should threaten to cut off federal student aid funding and research funding from Vanderbilt or any university that seeks to discriminate against Christian students or other groups antagonistic to militant secularism.

The latest example of this anti-Christian bigotry, which has gotten well-deserved coverage during the GOP presidential primary campaign, is the Obama Administration's attempts to require Catholic educational institutions to provide contraceptives to employees as part of their health insurance coverage.  No institution, regardless of their sectarian beliefs, should be forced to submit to the federal government's desire to impose secular abortionist morality upon them.  This proposed policy, lead by Obama and the Wicked Abortionist Witch of Kansas HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is blatantly unconstitutional and should be resisted at all cost.  I'm pleased so many Catholic clergy have denounced this move after so many of them have tacitly and openly endorsed Democratic political figures for many decades.  Hopefully, truly committed Catholics will see this as a sign that they should place their voting behavior in alignment with their religious beliefs and not vote for Obama and his Democratic allies.  The Obama Administration's vociferous support for abortion and homosexuality should cause other moral traditionalists, whether Christian or non-Christian, to recognize the dangerous consequences of promoting immoral behavior and lifestyles on their personal religious freedom and societal well-being.

Nearly every day we see news stories demonstrating the tragic consequences of tolerating immoral and sexually perverse behavior. The Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University toppled that university's legendary football coach Joe Paterno and the university's administration destroying the lives of many innocent boys.  Today's news tells the story of how two teachers were removed from a predominately Hispanic Los Angeles elementary school after engaging in repeated acts of lewd behavior and photographing such behavior with children at this school.  Elites in the media, judiciary, and many educational sectors (described by Thomas Sowell in The Vision of the Anointed) falsely tell us that we must enable all forms of diversity even if they produce moral perversion, that God does not exist, that there are no absolute standards of right or wrong, and that we can make up our moral code as we go along.  Another recent news story told of how a Utah adolescent sought to reenact the 1999 Columbine school shooting massacre in his hometown school and even went so far in his preparations as to interview the Columbine principal before he was caught.  The chickens of secularism and moral relativism are coming home to roost and have their biggest ally in the Obama Adminstration.  Despite his proclaimed adherence to an admittedly liberal form of Christianity, Barack Obama and his leftist administration are the most powerful and dangerous allies militant secularism has ever had in this country.  That's why it's so important that Obama and his cohorts are removed from power during this year's election.  The moral consequences of allowing this administration to remain in this power are an apocalyptic vision best depicted in prophetic biblical books such as Daniel and Revelation.  Public policy consequences of a continuing Obama Administration include continued economic stagnation and decline, greater family breakdown and societal dependence on government, and a government to enfeebled to respond to the strategic challenges imposed by Islamist Terrorism and a growing and emboldened China.  Increasing anti-Christian mob action is also an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in Islamic countries as a recent Newsweek at the Daily Beast.com  by Ayaan Hirsi Ali demonstrates.
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Gingrich's Selective and Misleading Budget Narrative

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 7:24:28 PM
During his recent surge in GOP presidential primary polls Newt Gingrich has claimed that he was responsible for four federal budget surpluses during his two terms as House Speaker.  The truth is otherwise.  The budget deficit begin declining in Fiscal Year 1992 (October 1, 1991-September 30, 1992) and the following figures from the Office of Management and Budget (as contained in the Census Bureau's annual Statistical Abstract of the United States) show the federal budget remained in deficit until Fiscal Year 1998 when it achieved a surplus of $69.3 billion.  In fact, this surplus increased after Gingrich resigned and was replaced as Speaker by Dennis Hastert with the surplus being $125.6 billion in Fiscal Year 1999, $236.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2000, and $128.2 billion in Fiscal Year 2001, before increased defense and non-defense spending after the 9/11 terrorist attacks brought us into a federal budget deficit again.

The House Speaker's role in the budget process can vary but the Republican legislators who deserve most credit for budget surpluses during this time were Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Rep. John Kasich of Ohio who chaired the  House and Senate Budget Committees during much of this time.  Naturally, this is extremely inconvenient to Gingrich's narrative that he was solely responsible for the fatuous claim that he produced the governmental budget surplus we enjoyed from FY 1998-2001.
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