America Must Lead

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark and former NATO Secretary General, is the author of The Will to Lead: America's Indispensable Role in the Global Fight for Freedom.

He's got a great segment at Prager University:

Who Was Paul Revere?

Seems like such a central historical figure, but hey, our culture's messed up, starting with the public education system.

Here's Eric Metaxas, for Prager University:



And ICYMI, buy his book, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty.

If You Saw Your Dog and a Stranger Both Drowning in the Ocean, Which Would You Save First?

Here's Dennis Prager:

Dennis Prager: America is in Jeopardy (VIDEO)

I love Dennis Prager.

I met him briefly at the David Horowitz West Coast Retreat in 2011.

I missed the 2016 PragerU Dinner, however. I'm sure that'd be a treat.

But don't miss Prager's outstanding book, Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.

Kasim Hafeez: 'Born to Hate Jews' (VIDEO)

YouTube banned this video from the site this morning, only to reinstate the clip after realizing it's an anti-hate video, not a hate video, which would be violate the service's terms.

Via Legal Insurrection, "YouTube Banned Prager U Video “Born to Hate Jews” – Reinstated After Protest and Petition."

And watch, "How do devout Muslims born in the West feel about Jews? How do they feel about Western values in general? Kasim Hafeez, who was raised a devout Muslim in England, explains."

Hopefully it won't get pulled, but if so, click on the LI link, where another video is embedded.

Please Say 'Merry Christmas'

It's December everybody!

It's a wonderful time of year!

Merry Christmas!

From Dennis Prager, one of the better Prager University videos I've seen:

Democratic Socialism is Still Socialism

It's the hilarious Steven Crowder, for Prager University:

Steve Forbes: Sensible Government Policy Promotes the Normal 'Churn' of the Economy (VIDEO)

At Prager University:

The Most Important Words Ever Written Are the Ten Commandments (VIDEO)

Following-up, "America, and All That It Stands For, Is In Jeopardy."

Here's Dennis Prager's new book, at Amazon, The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code.

The most important words ever written are the Ten Commandments. These words changed the world when they were first presented at Mt. Sinai to Israelites, and they are changing it now. They are the foundation stones of Western Civilization.

Given their staggering importance, you would think that all societies, and certainly our educational and religious institutions, would be intent on studying them closely. Sadly, this is not the case. Our schools ignore them and our churches and synagogues take them for granted. But here's a simple test: Who among us can even name all of the Ten Commandments? And even among those who can name them, how many can explain them in a way that makes sense to the modern eye and ear?

If you are a person of faith, this book will strengthen it; if you are agnostic it will force you to rethink your doubts; if you're atheist, it will test your convictions...

More.

America, and All That It Stands For, Is In Jeopardy

From Dennis Prager, at IBD, "A Dark Time In America":

Prager: "Every distinctive value on which America was founded is in jeopardy." https://t.co/NXGIJlvlBY #tcot #tlot

— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) May 14, 2016

We may soon know if Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential candidate. And, barring unforeseeable events, it is certain that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Those are two reasons — of many, unfortunately — why, other than the first years of the Civil War, when the survival of the United States as one country was in jeopardy, there has never been a darker time in American history.

The various major wars — the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars — were worse in terms of American lives lost.

The Great Depression was worse in economic terms.

There were more riots during the Vietnam War era.

But at no other time has there been as much pessimism — valid pessimism, moreover — about America’s future as there is today.

Among the reasons are:

Every distinctive value on which America was founded is in jeopardy.

According to a Pew Research Center study, more and more young Americans do not believe in freedom of speech for what they deem hate speech. Forty percent of respondents ages 18 to 34 agreed that offensive statements should be outlawed.

According to a series of Harvard University polls, about 47% of Americans ages 18 to 29 believe that food, shelter and health care “are a right that government should provide to those unable to afford them.” That means that nearly half our young believe they have a legitimate claim on the labor and earnings of others for life’s basic necessities.

More than half of 18- to 29-year-old Americans do not support capitalism, the source of the prosperity they enjoy, and the only economic system that has ever lifted mass numbers of people out of poverty.

When young Americans see pictures of the Founding Fathers, they do not see the great men that most Americans have seen throughout American history; they see white males who were affluent (now derisively labeled “privileged”) and owned slaves.

The belief that certain fundamental rights are God-based — a view held by every American founder and nearly all Americans throughout its history — is reviled outside of conservative religious circles, and held by fewer and fewer Americans today.

The view that male and female are distinctive identities — one of the few unquestioned foundational views of every society in history — is being obliterated. Simply saying that one believes (all things being equal) a child does best starting out life with a married father and mother will ensure they’ll be considered a “hater.”

The ideas that America should be a melting pot, or that all Americans should identify as American, are now unutterable in educated company. In fact, many college campuses do not have an American flag on their campus because some students regard it as offensive and representational of imperialism and capitalism.

In addition, virtually every major institution is in decay or disarray...

Still more.

Was America Once Socialist?

Well, once upon a time. Think back. Way back, heh.

Here's Professor Larry Schweikart, for Prager University:

The World Is Getting Worse, But This Time America Won't Save It

From Dennis Prager, via Blazing Cat Fur:

I cannot imagine any thinking person who does not believe the world is getting worse.

The number of slaughtered and the number of refugees from slaughter is immense and growing.

Islamic State now controls territories from Afghanistan to West Africa. Libya is in the process of being added to that list. And other sadistic Islamist movements hold additional territory.

According to Pew Research, approximately 10 percent of world Muslims have a favorable opinion of the Islamic State and terror against civilians.

That’s more than 100 million people...

Keep reading.

Why Are Men So Easily Turned On Sexually by a Woman's Legs (VIDEO)

Here's Dennis Prager, who goes almost a full 5 minutes talking about the sexual power of the visual without mention the male hormone, testosterone, heh.

That's the key ingredient creating very different sexual stimuli between men and women.

At Prager University:

Left and Right Differences: How Do You Judge America?

An awesome clip, from Dennis Prager:

Stop Racism! Stop Treating Blacks Differently. Stop Giving Free Pass to Riots and Looting

Here's Chloe Valdary, for Prager University.

America's Accelerating Decay

From Dennis Prager, at National Review, "The steepening decline is evident in the family, in education, in morality, in art":

As one who loves America — not only because I am American, but even more so because I know (not believe, know) that the American experiment in forming a decent society has been the most successful in history — I write the following words in sadness: With few exceptions, every aspect of American life is in decline.

“Decay” is the word.

The Decline of the Family: Nearly half (48 percent) of American children are born to a mother who is not married. Forty-three percent of American children live without a father in the home. About 50 percent of Americans over 18 are married, compared with 72 percent in 1960. Americans are having so few children that the fertility rate fell to a record low 62.9 births per 1,000 women in 2013. And in an increasing number of states, there are now more deaths than births.

The Decline of Education: Compared with nearly all of American history, the average American school teaches much less about important subjects such as American history, English grammar, literature, music, and art. Instead schools are teaching much more about “social justice,” environmentalism, and sex. Any of us who receive e-mail from large numbers of Americans can attest to the deteriorating education — including among those who attended college — in written English. In sophisticated commentary on websites as well as in e-mail, one encounters the most basic errors: “it’s” instead of “its”; “their” instead of “there”; “then” instead of “than”; etc.

Most universities have become secular seminaries for the dissemination of leftism. Moreover, aside from indoctrination, students usually learn little. One can earn a B.A. in English at UCLA, for example, without having read a single Shakespeare play. To the extent that American history is taught, beginning in high school and often earlier, American history is presented as the history of an immoral nation characterized by slavery, racism, colonialism, imperialism, economic exploitation, and militarism — not of a country that, more than any other, has been the beacon of freedom to mankind, and the country that has spent more treasure and spilled more blood to liberate other peoples than any other nation.

The End of Male and Female: Whatever one’s position on same-sex marriage, one must acknowledge that at the core of the argument for this redefinition of marriage is that gender doesn’t matter. Marriage is marriage and gender means nothing, the argument goes. So, too, whether children are raised by mother and father or two mothers or two fathers doesn’t matter. A father has nothing unique to offer a child that a mother can’t provide and vice versa.

Why? Because — for the first time in recorded history — gender is regarded as meaningless. Indeed, increasingly gender doesn’t even exist; it’s merely a social construct imposed on children by parents and society based on the biological happenstance of their genitalia. When signing up for Facebook, one is offered nearly 60 options under “gender.” In various high schools across the country, boys are elected homecoming queen. A woman was recently kicked out of Planet Fitness for objecting to a man in the women’s locker room. She was accused of intolerance because the man said he felt that he was a woman.

The End of Right and Wrong: At least two generations of American young people have been taught that moral categories are nothing more than personal (or societal) preferences. Recently, an incredulous professor of philosophy wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts.” In it he noted, “Without fail, every value claim is labeled an opinion” (italics in original). This extends to assessing the most glaring of evils. Since the Nazis thought killing Jews was right, there is no way to know for sure whether it was wrong; it’s the Nazis’ opinion against that of the Jews and anyone else who objects. I have heard this sentiment from American high-school students — including many Jewish ones — for 30 years.

The End of Religion: There are no moral truths because there is no longer a religious basis for morality. More than the Enlightenment, it was the Bible — especially the Hebrew Bible (which was one reason America’s Christians were different from most European Christians) that guided the Founders’ and other Americans’ values. Not any more. Instead of being guided by a code higher than themselves, Americans are taught to rely on their feelings to determine how to behave. Instead of being given moral guidance, children are asked, “How do you feel about it?”

The End of Beauty...

More.

Muslims Need to Confront Muslim Evil

From Dennis Prager, at Town Hall:

With this weekend's massacre by Muslim terrorists at a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, and Muslim terrorists killing about 80 Christians at a Christian church in Pakistan, most people wonder what, if anything in addition to a continuing war on terror, can be done to minimize the scourge of Islamic terror.

The answer lies with Muslims themselves. Specifically, it means that Muslim religious leaders around the world must announce that any Muslim who deliberately targets non-combatants for death goes to hell....

Muslim leaders -- specifically, every imam in the world who is not a supporter of terror, the leaders of the most important Sunni institutions, such as the Al-Azhar Mosque and University in Cairo, and religious leaders in Saudi Arabia and the in Gulf states -- must announce that any Muslim who participates in any deliberate attack on civilians goes to hell.

This must be announced as clearly and as repeatedly as, for example, Muslim condemnations of Israel.

Just as the promise of immediate entrance into paradise animates many Muslim terrorists, the promise of immediate hell would dissuade many Muslims from committing acts of terrorism. Just as the promise of 72 virgins animates many Muslim terrorists, the promise of hell would dissuade many Muslims from terrorism.

Whenever non-Muslims ask Muslim organizations about Muslim terrorism, these organizations trot out the various anti-terrorism statements they have issued. But these are largely useless because: a) they are usually issued by Western Muslim organizations; b) even when they are issued by Middle Eastern Muslims, they almost always include condemnation of "state terrorism," which is Muslim-speak for condemnation of any use of force by Israel; and c) these statements usually also condemn non-Muslim terror, as if Christian or Jewish or Buddhist terrorism is as great a threat to humanity as is Muslim terrorism.

Therefore the statements that need to be made by every Muslim teacher, school, mosque and organization that does not support Muslim terror must be unequivocal. They need to state that any Muslim who targets any civilian for death -- whether that civilian is Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or of no religion -- goes to hell.

In addition, there need to be large Muslim demonstrations against Muslim terrorism. I understand that Muslim clerics who would organize such demonstrations in the Muslim world might be risking their lives. But what about Muslims in America and Europe?

There have been huge Muslim demonstrations against cartoons depicting Muhammad and any other perceived "insult" against Islam. But I am unaware of a single demonstration of Muslims against Muslim terror directed at non-Muslims.

And if morality doesn't persuade Muslim leaders to issue such a statement and organize such demonstrations, perhaps self-interest will. To just about everyone in the world outside of academia and the media, Islam is not looking good. Muslim leaders should be aware that with Muslims burning Christian churches and Christian bodies in Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt and elsewhere, and the regular massacring of innocents by Muslim terror groups, the protestations by Muslim spokesmen that "Islam is religion of peace" are beginning to wear thin. For a religion that seeks converts, this is not a positive development.

On the other hand, perhaps not that many Muslim religious leaders do believe that Muslim terrorists are going to hell.

Don't stop there.

Any regressive leftist who does not denounce the killing should go to hell.