Today's Religious Persecution

            In the year 313 Roman Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan.  It legalized Christian worship and effectively ended an era of  Christian persecution that had included, among other atrocities, circus entertainment featuring rather non-competitive contests  between Christians and lions.  

            Several centuries passed during which Christianity spread throughout Europe as well as parts of Asia and North Africa.  The movement suffered temporary setbacks caused by invasions from Norsemen, barbarians, and Muslims, but it flourished with the colonization of the Americas and Africa to become the world's dominant religion.  Persecutions were not unknown during this period, some, like the Inquisition, perpetrated by Christianity itself. 
            Now, one would expect that with the advent of modern civilization religious persecutions would cease altogether.  Yet, that is not the case.  To be sure, we have seen Christians slaughtered in Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, and Eritrea by radical Islamists, but that doesn't explain, for instance, the ferocity of the eradication campaign against Christians in North Korea.  Nor does it explain the attacks against Christianity in this country.
            With few exceptions, like church burnings, the assault against Christians in America has not resulted in fatalities.  But it is real nonetheless, only in a different guise.  The barbarians of today take the form of atheists whose billboard in Times Square pronounces that we don't need Christ in Christmas,  the self-proclaimed champions of religious freedom who would prohibit Christmas carols in schools or Nativity scenes on the public square, and the secularists who would excise all expressions of Merry Christmas in favor of the inoffensive Happy Holidays.  They would in effect replace our constitutionally protected freedom of religion with freedom from religion.
            Christmas proclaims Joy to the World and Goodwill toward Men.  Perhaps there are some among us who need to be reminded that the reason for this proclamation is the message of universal love brought to us by the one whose birth we celebrate in this most joyful of all seasons.

The Slavery of Debt

            Martin Bashir is finally gone.  He said he resigned from his job at MSNBC, but we all know he was fired for the vile on-air attack he made on Sarah Palin.  He suggested someone defecate in her mouth, a method of punishment used by some slave owners.  Why would Bashir attack Palin in this disgusting way?   Because she had said that America had become enslaved to debt.

            Here in part is what she said:  "Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China.  When that money comes due...it'll be like slavery...We are going to be beholden to the foreign master."
            Liberals, who care nothing about spending this nation into oblivion, went nuts.  When Ron Paul echoed Sara Palin's words by saying "Ultimately, debt is slavery," Salon Magazine called him a racist.  Al Sharpton, who is well known for his own brand of racism, slammed Palin.  He screamed, "Our federal debt is like slavery?  Slavery was a horrific, vile, a vile practice explicitly based on race.  So it's hard to avoid sounding racist when you make comparisons like that."  The Reverend might have remembered that his Bible says, "The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower becomes the lender's slave." (Proverbs 22:7)
            Let's look at some facts.  Our national debt is 1700% higher today than it was in 1971.  The debt is now over $17 trillion, and, if we include unfunded liabilities, it is over $70 trillion.  Individual Americans are also enslaved by debt.  According to the Federal Reserve, household debt, which includes credit cards, mortgages, car payments, medical debt, and student loans, averages $75,600, or 154% of personal income.  Credit card debt alone totals $798 billion, more than $15,000 per household.  Meanwhile, our government, oblivious to the impending catastrophe, is strangling our economy by taxing us to the hilt to fund runaway entitlements  and disastrous programs like ObamaCare. 
            How did we get so far into debt?  We had virtually no national debt 90 years ago.  Calvin Coolidge, who was president then, explained why.   He said, "A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny.  It condemns citizens to servitude."  He knew something about economic slavery even back then.  I wonder what he would say today.   

           

Write, Write, Write

            I recently wrote that thinking is what I did for a living.  Of course, that's only half of it.  If you have acquired the habit of clear and logical thinking, you then have to develop the skill to apply it.  More than likely, this will involve communications.  My career was mostly in Marketing, a field in which good communications skills are absolutely essential.

            The best advice I could give kids today to improve their ability to communicate is to learn how to write.  And like any other facility, this one depends on practice.  Lots of it.  I'm not talking about texting your friends every minute of the day.  I'm suggesting a daily practice of putting your ideas down on paper.  You did it in school, so continue to do it even when your formal education is over.  Keep a diary.  Write letters.  Start a blog.  Anytime you get an idea, write it down.
            Learn how to write, but also learn how to write better.  Start with simple instruction books like E.B. White's Elements of Style and perhaps a book on editing.  Better still, find a mentor, an accomplished writer who is willing to look at your scribbles and suggest improvements.  I did it for my son Marc and I'm proud to say that his excellent writing skills have been a key to his success in business.
            My first mentor was my father.  He happened to be a linguist, perfectly bilingual in French and English, but also conversant in Spanish and Italian, with a smattering of Vietnamese and Arabic he picked up while working overseas for the State Department.  His best advice to me when I was in high school was how to expand my vocabulary.  He said, "Always have a dictionary at hand.  When you see a word you don't know, look it up immediately.  Write it down.  Then use it in three different sentences.  Do that, and this new word will be yours forever."
            Just as an aside, a couple of weeks ago I stopped at a used-book store and picked up a copy of Winston Churchill's "History of the English-Speaking Peoples."  I hadn't read two chapters when I ran into three words I didn't know, all three oddly beginning with the letter "e": exiguous, effulgence,  and ebullition.  I looked them up and wrote them down, along with their definition.  I doubt I'll ever use any of these words in a letter to the editor, but at least I'll know what they mean if I ever run into them again.  I won't give you the definitions here...you'll have to look them up them up yourself.