Read the whole thing, which dovetails perfectly with some very much related blog posts floating around the ‘Net.

Melissa Clouthier explores a topic I’ve been pondering all summer: given the rise of the Blogosphere, YouTube, Twitter, alternative media such as NRO, the Weekly Standard (where O’Rourke’s article appears above), Commentary, Reason, Drudge, PJM, Fox, etc., and knowing what we now know about the MSM via the JournoList scandal, their own public admissions, and 20 years of legwork by the MRC: “Why on earth should Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell or any of the Republicans give the media who hate them the ratings and money that comes with an appearance?”

But note that if Republicans don’t want to play the role of punching bag for the MSM, it’s a voluntary gesture. That’s very different from the pressure being waged against liberal pundits and politicians from the far left not to appear on the source of all evil emanating in the world everywhere — channel #360 on your DirectTV dial.

And finally, after all of that hard news, we’ll linger in Hollywood just a bit for some comedy gold from Rob Reiner. Yes, the actor turned director turned anti-smoking obsessive quasi-government official gets his inner Garofalo on and has the Orwellian — and staggeringly clapped out — observation that the folks who want to shrink government and reduce its interference in our daily lives are secretly the folks who in the 1930s built one of the most massive welfare states of all — and I don’t mean FDR.

Or to borrow from Ameripundit, “Nothing says National Socialism like a bunch of limited government, anti-central authoritarian activists who despise nationalization and the running of other people’s lives.”

(Via Jim Treacher, who adds, “Rob Reiner’s IQ goes to 11,” though to be fair, that comparison is an attack on fine Marshall amps everywhere.)

Because he has experienced it first hand, Juan Williams now has put a label on the tactic used by the so-called "progressives." Though they don't call it that, censorship has been their tool for decades. Like termites, they have censored the ideas of liberty from the nation's textbooks and from much of public discourse.

But, you won't see an Obama or Clinton ad declaring, "I'm not a censor."

Nowhere has this censorship by the "Progressives" been more coordinated or more devastating to liberty than in the schools and colleges of America.

The following is excerpted from a series entitled, "Lessons on Liberty," by La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Editor, "Our Ageless Constitution" & "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts the Founders' Ideas of Liberty", which were intended to be taught to rising generations, with the Counterfeit Ideas promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades.

IDEAS OF LIBERTY:

(from America’s Founders and Presidents)

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)

“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)

“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)

“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)

“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)

“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)

“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)

"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .

"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: “The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.”

COUNTERFEIT IDEAS:

(from some of those whose views have dominated national educational policy)

“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)

Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)

“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)

“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)

“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)

“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)

“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)

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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)

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