Free Republic

The forebodings the Jews of Europe had as they were herded onto cattle cars to an unknown destination are the same feelings of helplessness I have as the Copenhagen Climate Summit reaches its conclusion. It is the concern that unaccountable, unelected and unresponsive individuals will seal my fate and squander my assets to bring “social justice” to the world. Make no mistake, global warmists are more interested in achieving an agenda of undoing Westernism than cooling the planet. It is Westernism that has brought unbridled prosperity to most of the world, and where it doesn’t exist (North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar...

Compassion for the elderly and infirm that has come to characterize Thomas S. Monson's ministry soon will be embraced more fully by the worldwide church he leads. The LDS Church is adding "to care for the poor and needy" to its longstanding "threefold mission," which is to preach the LDS gospel, purify members' lives and provide saving ordinances such as baptism to those who have died. This mission first was coined by late LDS President Spencer W. Kimball in the 1980s and since then has been repeated as a mantra by the church's more than 13 million members. The new...

What Is Social Justice? What, exactly, is social justice? (snip) Are we to gather from this that the term social justice is simply a synonym for living out the beauty of the Beatitudes? I once heard a professor at the Catholic University of Ružomberok, Slovakia, say that he thought of social justice as “an ideal arrangement of society, in which justice and charity are fully served. Until then, one cannot say that social justice has been realized.” Does this mean that social justice is a social ideal by which some people measure reality and toward which they strive, progressively, to...

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution. Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not...

The National Education Association has made a glowing assessment of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky and is enthusiastically recommending American public school teachers read two of his books, including one dedicated to Satan. On its website, the NEA dubs Alinsky "an inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" It recommends Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals," a 1946 book about the principles and tactics of "community organizing," and "Rules for Radicals," a 1971 text that articulated a socialist strategy for gaining political power to redistribute wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." The NEA, the largest...

Judiciary: The nominee for a California federal district court is an ACLU activist and another advocate for the empathy standard of jurisprudence. He also has a problem with "America the Beautiful." The nomination of Edward Chen is the latest in a series of nominations of people who have no particular fondness for the traditions of law and justice. These nominees see racism everywhere, and believe the courts should be used as instruments of social justice and not to discern the intent of the Founding Fathers who wrote the U.S. Constitution. They believe their "life experience" should be the final arbiter...

?Tax the rich, Feed the poor, ‘Til there are no Rich no more." - "I'd Love to Change the World" Ten Years After (1971) Over the Columbus Day weekend, my wife and I traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y. to visit our daughter and her boyfriend. I was strictly admonished by my wife not to talk politics during the visit, since my daughter's boyfriend is a radical leftist. He, being a well-educated social science buff, and I, being who I am (a well-educated "right-wing nut job"), we had created many spectacular fireworks during past political debate sessions.

Tolerance is the mother who softens the harshness of father’s strict adherence to the rules. Since nobody’s perfect, lawmakers and judges should guard against legal surprises never anticipated by lawmakers. This isn’t rewriting the decrees but interpretation in the highest sense of the word so the law can accomplish its original intent. “Who can say “I have purified my heart, I am free of sin? There is no man on earth so righteous that he never sins!” Proverbs 20:9 Below are some suggestions for lawmakers and judges to bring about a more just country: Intolerance-Justice should be based on each...

This woman is talking about how her kids are bringing home Social Justice teachings at the catholic school ... I'm sure other faiths are too ...

The B-Cast: How Obama's 'Coalitions of Power' Are Key to 'Stealthy Agenda'

On Thursday, September 24th, after an apparently productive day at Fengler High School in Chicago, Derrion Albert, a black 16 year old honor student was knocked to the ground by a blow to the head with a railroad tie. He was then punched, kicked and stomped. Those who responded to rescue him were too late. Derrion had walked into the middle of a fight between two rival black gangs. He attempted to help one of the victims in the melee and was killed for his trouble. This took place in Barack Obama's Chicago. All his work for "social justice" did...

It appears that the marginal-at-best Green Party will go to any lengths to thumb its collective nose at the American voting public. A report from The Hill suggests that the party whose platform is equal parts ecological wisdom and social justice has extended feelers to disgraced former Green Jobs Czar, Truther Jones. Having garnered a thimbleful of plausibility with the nomination of perennial Presidential candidate Ralph Nader as their choice in 1996, the party received nearly 2.7 % of the votes in the 2000 Presidential election. By 2008, the political geniuses at Green Party central had whittled their share of...

By now Ron Bloom’s professional road to becoming the Obama administration’s car czar has been widely reported. Missing from the coverage, however, has been any mention of those formative years at Jewish summer camp. Born in New York City and raised in Swarthmore, a suburb of Philadelphia, much of Bloom’s early life revolved around Habonim (now known as Habonim Dror), a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement that emphasizes cultural Judaism, socialism and social justice. It’s all part of an upbringing that the man overseeing the country’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry cites among his earliest influences... ...At age 10,...

My favorite Christian radio station, KLTY in North Texas, has turned to politics. It has begun to advertise a Conference on Social Justice sponsored by Soujorners and Jim Wallis. Jim Wallis stands behind a facade of christian activism to further the aims of the democrat party and particularly, Barak Obama. I have written KLTY an email: "I am concerned with the advertising that you have been playing for the social justice conference in November. I have found, in the past, that anything that Jim Wallis and Sojourners’ have sponsored have been loose disguises for the furtherance of a progressive (if...

Below Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck explains the Apollo Alliance on his July 28 show. Beck mentions the Obama administration’s “stimulus” blueprint, “The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs,” which you can read here.

Most encyclicals are so long, so dense and so reflective of the committee of theologians that prepares them that they wind up as the least-read of any papal pronouncements -- despite being the most authoritative document a pope can issue. That is especially true of encyclicals on social justice, like the one Pope Benedict XVI released today. One reason is that Catholic social-justice teaching covers so many complex issues -- trade, immigration, labor unions, business ethics and wage gaps, to name but a few -- that the eyes of the most ardent faithful can glaze over. Moreover, today's economy is...

President Obama said the Catholic Church's long tradition of social justice has had a "profound influence" on him -- just days before he is to meet with Pope Benedict XVI on his first trip to Italy. Obama told FOX News that he looks forward to reading the encyclical, a "circular letter" titled "Charity in Truth," published by the Vatican. The encyclical -- set to be published on the eve of the G8 summit -- has been seen as a message from the pope to leaders of advanced nations who will convene in L'Aquila, Italy,on Wednesday. "Specifically, I think that social...

We’re hearing a lot these days about human rights and social justice—particularly among younger evangelicals, but also among secularists. It’s a good thing that there is a growing concern for the poor and the oppressed around the world. But when the younger generation approaches people like me and tells us that we need to be working for “social justice,” what I tell them is that we’re already doing it. In fact, I believe it’s the single greatest apologetic of the Christian Church. But what makes us different from the secularists, however, is our worldview—especially in our belief in a...

In his 1835 masterpiece, Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville, reported on his observations of the American scene after an extensive tour of the new Republic. One of his most profound insights had to do with the genius of Americans in the formation of institutions that mediate between large, distant government and the solitary, insular individual: Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans...

Religion's role in U.S. politics was on full display on Thursday as President Barack Obama spoke and prayed at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Obama, an adult convert to Christianity, used the occasion to announce that he will be establishing a White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. This will replace or be an extension of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives established by former President George W. Bush, who was strongly supported by conservative Christians. Some of Obama's remarks about the new office are sure to raise eyebrows in those conservative Christian circles. For example: "The goal...

Why did 18-to-29-year-old evangelicals vote for Barack Obama despite his apostasy on the fundamental moral issues of abortion and same-sex unions? They voted 32% for Obama, twice the percentage of that demographic group who voted for John Kerry in 2004. Many of these young people identify "social justice" as the reason that led them to relegate the prime moral issues of life and marriage to the back burner. But the term "social justice" does not define a moral cause; it is leftwing jargon to overturn those who have economic and political power. What caused young evangelicals, the children of the...

Sex and the Seminary? Posted: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 6:08 am ET The release of a report entitled "Sex and the Seminary" is certain to attract attention -- which is no doubt why the report was produced in the first place. In this case, the report is an attempt to push the sexual revolution through institutions designed for the training of ministers. As "Sex and the Seminary" makes clear, many liberal institutions joined the sexual revolution long ago. The report was released January 8, 2009 by the "Sexuality Education for the Formation of Religious Professionals and Clergy" project, which...

Science writer Matt Ridley on the causes of poverty and prosperityMatt Ridley, an Oxford-educated zoologist, turned to journalism in 1983, when he got a job as The Economist’s science reporter. He soon became the magazine’s Washington correspondent and eventually served as it’s American editor. This time in the United States had a profound intellectual effect on Ridley, ultimately leading him to become a self-described classical liberal, a “person who believes in economic freedom and social freedom, too.� Ridley, 50, has written several superb books that combine clear explanations of complex biology with discussions of the science’s implications for human society....

That the news media were biased in the 2008 presidential election is now acknowledged by fair-minded people, left or right. As Time Magazine's Mark Halperin said last weekend at a Politico/USC Conference on the 2008 election: "It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business. . . . It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage." Given how obvious this bias is, the question is not whether liberals in the media tend to offer biased reporting. The question is why? Why can't liberal news people report the news without any slant? Lack Of ObjectivityThe answer is that for people on...

An open letter to our fellow Catholics on Election Eve Edward Morrissey and Elizabeth “The Anchoress” Scalia Many of our Catholic friends support Barack Obama in the upcoming election, despite being the most radically pro-abortion presidential candidate in American history. Other Catholics have publicly declared support for Obama as Catholics, arguing that their faith leads them to choose Obama over the pro-life candidate, John McCain. We believe that they have overlooked in their arguments of “social justice” the foundation of our faith and of social justice: the sanctity of human life, and its origin. It is not our intent to...

PETA Wants Proposed Homosexual High School to Have ‘Vegan’ Cafeteria Thursday, October 30, 2008 By Matt Hadro (CNSNews.com) - In the name of “tolerance,” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) wants a proposed Chicago public high school designed for homosexual and lesbian students to offer a vegetarian-only menu. “The school in Chicago is in a very unique position in aligning its cafeteria with the social justice message that they’re teaching in the classroom,” PETA Director of Media Relations Michael McGraw told CNSNews.com. McGraw sent a letter to the proposed school asking the expected principal, Chad Weiden, to choose...

...as pundits and partisans have debated the significance of his relationship with Senator Barack Obama, William Ayers has avoided the limelight, steering clear of political commentary and public pronouncements. But on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Ayers, 63, a founder of the 1960s-era radical group the Weather Underground, a former fugitive, former Chicago Citizen of the Year and current professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, appeared without fanfare at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, in Chelsea, to participate in a symposium on educational justice. snip... The two men have been described as friendly, but not close. snip...the WNYC radio...

“That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper,’ that spirit is most evident during times of great tragedy. It’s most evident during times of great hardship, it’s most when natural disasters strike. We all understand that we have to come together.” – Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) on the campaign trail, Sept. 2, 2008 Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) frequently claims on the hustings, as part of his campaign for the presidency, that he would like to usher in a new era of “change” where Americans...

The Duplicity of Catholics United Posted on September 18, 2008, 7:48 AM | Deal W. Hudson Catholics United is running a TV ad in a few small markets arguing John McCain is not really pro-life because he failed to vote for an expansion of government-funded health care (SCHIP). When I saw this story, I thought of the word "duplicity " -- "a contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action." Catholics United pretends to care about the pro-life issue but fails to criticize, or even mention, the abortion extremism of Barack Obama. Obama's position on the life issue has already been...

Why Taxation Isn't (Necessarily) Theft by Eric Pavlat 8/14/08 I still remember the pain when my best friend and I stopped attending the same school after first grade. His parents decided he would be better off in a private school. I asked my mom how he could do that, and she explained that his parents were spending a little extra money to send him there. So, was my mom spending money to send me to school? She told me that she already paid taxes, and that's how the school building was constructed and the teachers were paid. As full of...

WASHINGTON — Politically speaking, Susan Speakman is a different kind of evangelical. Mrs. Speakman, 59, a pastor and educator at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Bridgeville, Pa., an activist evangelical church southwest of Pittsburgh, backs Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race. Along with her 23-year-old son, Stephen, she supports Mr. Obama because of his stands on the Iraq war and matters of social justice. The two of them plan to spread the word in their community and beyond. “What caught my attention early on was his comment that we don’t want red states and blue states, but we want to...

Among the boilerplate views of his party that do not at all distinguish him from Hillary Clinton is Barack Obama's promise to create tax credits for the cost of higher education. Like most political candidates and all Democratic candidates I have heard, Obama has never gone after Big Education. Can't. Not in the party platform. He goes after Big Oil and Big Business and Big Health Care. Already down is Big Tobacco. Still to come is Big Fast Food and whatever else might be sued or regulated to bring about what is so euphemistically called social justice. I never hear...

The focus of media attention is [on Rev. Wright’s] “God damn America” sermon. But that’s not the main conclusion of his theology. The main conclusion of his theology is his call for gigantic reparations payments to African-Americans by the Federal government. This would be the largest government welfare project since Medicare… Rev. Wright is an advocate of what is known as black theology. Black theology is a variant of the radical movement known as liberation theology, which is an extreme version of the social gospel. Rev. Wright is open about his advocacy of black theology-liberation theology… They all preach the...

Today's morning must-read is a flashback to Sol Stern's 2006 report in City Journal on how Bill Ayers' radical "social justice" curriculum has infiltrated the K-12 public school system: Reason number 99,999,967 to home school. An excerpt: The readings that Ayers assigns are as intellectually stimulating and diverse as a political commissar's indoctrination session in one of his favorite communist tyrannies. The reading list for his urban education course includes the bible of the critical pedagogy movement, Brazilian Marxist Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed; two books by Ayers himself; another by bell hooks, a radical black feminist writer and...

Whose 'Evangelical Manifesto'?Warren Smith - Guest Columnist - 4/17/2008 6:00:00 AM If all goes according to plan, on or about May 7, a group of evangelical leaders -- including the Rev. Rick Warren (of Saddleback Church and "Purpose Driven Life" fame) and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals -- will publish a document to be called "An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Identity and Public Commitment." Though the document has been circulating around the Internet for a month, it has been "embargoed." For purposes of our discussion here, I will honor the embargo and not delve...

Academia’s Big Tent by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 24, 2008 You can get a pretty good idea of where academics are coming from politically and where they expect their junior colleagues to fall on the political spectrum by what they tell each other, particularly when they put it down on paper. “The numerous ways of teaching suggest that there are varying philosophical or personal visions put forth about college teaching,” Michael W. Galbraith writes in College Teaching: Developing Perspective Through Dialogue.... “Once you discover what beliefs, values, and attitudes you hold, you will have the basis for a focused and...

The Bible Society has said that on 13 March, Members of Parliament were presented with the first Poverty and Justice Bible to highlight more than 2,000 verses reflecting God’s attitude to poverty and justice. Thirteen MPs were presented with the Bible by David Landrum, Bible Society’s Parliamentary Officer. This comes ahead of the official launch of The Poverty and Justice Bible at the Christian Spring Harvest festival from 25 March – 20 April. Andy Reed, MP for Loughborough, said, “This is the Bible I’ve been wanting for a long time. It highlights God’s heart for tackling poverty and establishing justice....

Hundreds of Christian leaders marched to Capitol Hill to meet with their representatives and convey their message of social justice and peace to cap off a large annual ecumenical gathering Monday. Tue, Mar. 11, 2008 Posted: 16:20:04 PM EST Hundreds of Christian leaders marched to Capitol Hill to meet with their representatives and convey their message of social justice and peace to cap off a large annual ecumenical gathering Monday. The President of the National Council of Churches USA, Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, in preparation for Monday’s advocacy told participants of the Ecumenical Advocacy Days that Christians have a biblical responsibility...

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright thinks that, given their treatment by white America, black Americans have no reason to sing "God Bless America." "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America," he told his congregation. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human." I'm not a believer in guilt by association, or the campaign vaudeville of rival politicians insisting this or that candidate dissociate himself from remarks by some fellow he had a 30-second grip'n'greet with a decade...

The Poverty and Justice Bible, the latest release from Bible Society, has broken new ground as the first ever to literally highlight the more than 2,000 passages that reveal God’s sorrow over poverty and injustice, and His command to believers to act to eradicate them. Sun, Mar. 02, 2008 Posted: 12:41:18 PM EST The Poverty and Justice Bible, the latest release from Bible Society, has broken new ground as the first ever to literally highlight the more than 2,000 passages that reveal God’s sorrow over poverty and injustice, and His command to believers to act to eradicate them. The new...

Cutting-edge leaders of the emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic streams are convening Thursday evening in Washington state to re-imagine ways to express the Christian faith. Thu, Feb. 28, 2008 Posted: 11:20:04 AM EST Cutting-edge leaders of the emerging, missional, mosaic and monastic streams are convening Thursday evening in Washington state to re-imagine ways to express the Christian faith. Under the banner of “The New Conspirators Conference,” attendees will contemplate what “God is conspiring” through the new generation of Christian leaders to make His kingdom relevant in a rapidly changing world. “As far as we know, this is the first time...

“Evangelicals are going to vote this year in part on climate change, on Darfur, on poverty,” said Jim Wallis, the author of a new book, “The Great Awakening,” which argues that the age of the religious right has passed and that issues of social justice are rising to the top of the agenda. Mr. Wallis says that about half of white evangelical votes will be in play this year. ... Look, I don’t agree with evangelicals on theology or on their typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq. Self-righteous zealots like Pat Robertson have been a plague upon...

According to M. J. Mcdermott, a meteorologist and Q13 Fox News (Seattle) weather reporter, the ongoing American mathematic illiteracy may be the result of misguided “reformed math” curriculum which fails to teach students the internationally recognized, efficient multiplication and division algorithms that older generations of Americans learned. Instead, children are encouraged to problem-solve without first developing efficient problem-solving techniques in multiplication and division. Math by CalculatorAs McDermott notes in her video, textbooks such as the 4th and 5th grade versions of Everyday Mathematics devote copious pages to non-germane topics such as a full-color 48-page world atlas to assist students in...

On Sunday the October 14th, the Times Argus published an article entitled "Scholar to bring 'Christian Left' message to Vt.", by Mel Huff. The article refers to Biblical scholar Marcus Borg, who teaches religion at Oregon State University. Professor Borg seems to be on a crusade. "We were trying to counter fundamentalist and very conservative Christianity by letting the public know there's another way of looking at this," In short, he is trying to promote the "Christian Left" as an anecdote to "counter the negative impressions of Christianity created by the Christian Right." What are those negative impressions? Borg says...

I believe that Dick Cheney is a liar; that Donald Rumsfeld is also a liar; and that George W. Bush was, and is, clueless about how to be the president of the United States. ...They have shamed our beloved nation in the world by this war and the shameful way they have fought it. Almost 4,000 young Americans are dead because of the lies of this administration, tens of thousands more wounded and maimed for life, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis also dead, and 400 billion dollars wasted—because of their lies, incompetence, and corruption. But I don’t favor impeachment, as...

George Will takes a look at the requirements for today's students of social work -- and discovers a political commissariat worthy of the Soviet Union. Universities have required pledges of loyalty to liberal political thought as a requisite for success in their social-work programs, failing students who object to being told what to think (via CapQ reader Sandeep Dath): In 1997, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) adopted a surreptitious political agenda in the form of a new code of ethics, enjoining social workers to advocate for social justice "from local to global levels." A widely used textbook --...

Black Church Leaders Mobilize to Combat HIV/AIDS A collective of Black church leaders called upon the U.S. government Tuesday to declare HIV/AIDS crisis in the African American community a “public health emergency” and introduced legislation that would address the epidemic. Wed, Oct. 10, 2007 Posted: 11:48:15 AM EST NEW YORK — A collective of Black church leaders called upon the U.S. government Tuesday to declare HIV/AIDS crisis in the African American community a “public health emergency” and introduced legislation that would address the epidemic. Following a two-day conclave, over 150 African American leaders proposed the National HIV/AIDS Elimination Act, which...

Religious Leaders Fast in Protest of Iraq War A number of religious leaders are participating in an interfaith fast Monday to call for the end of the Iraq war. Mon, Oct. 08, 2007 Posted: 13:28:58 PM EST WASHINGTON – A number of religious leaders are participating in an interfaith fast Monday to call for the end of the Iraq war. From dawn until dusk, leaders and adherents of Christianity, Judaism and Islam across the country will join in the anti-war fasting, which takes place as Muslims celebrate the “Night of Power” – the holiest night in Ramadan. “When you are...

In 1997, the National Association of Social Work (NASW) altered its ethics code, ruling that all social workers must promote social justice "from local to global level." This call for mandatory advocacy raised the question: what kind of political action did the highly liberal field of social work have in mind? The answer wasn't long in coming. The Council on Social Work Education, the national accreditor of social work education programs, says candidates must fight "oppression," and sees American society as pervaded by the "global interconnections of oppression." Now aspiring social workers must commit themselves, usually in writing, to a...

In 1997, the National Association of Social Work (NASW) altered its ethics code, ruling that all social workers must promote social justice “from local to global level.� This call for mandatory advocacy raised the question: what kind of political action did the highly liberal field of social work have in mind? The answer wasn’t long in coming. The Council on Social Work Education, the national accreditor of social work education programs, says candidates must fight “oppression,� and sees American society as pervaded by the “global interconnections of oppression.� Now aspiring social workers must commit themselves, usually in writing, to a...