CHOOSING TRUTH OR FICTION

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It seems that so few people think for themselves nowadays. They find it easier to let others do their thinking for them.

Oh, they may say they want the truth — but do they? The answer is most easily revealed in the sort of thing with which they feed their minds.

When you Google a subject, do you take the time to cull out the whacko sites on either end of the political spectrum that offer the most outlandish and ridiculous notions, or do you feed off those with harebrained ideas and outlandish accusations? .

Most of the time, it’s easy enough to find honest-to-goodness information and discard craziness. It requires only a little discernment to sort out the crazies.

If I’m looking for factual information on global warming, I can immediately disregard sites maintained by obvious proponents and, instead, read those that rely on scientific fact.

If it’s information on politics or current events I’m seeking, I can immediately discount The Huffington Post and Aryan Nation.

However many folks, rather than seek out factual information, deliberately choose to feed on the absurd lies of one side or the other. The results of filling the mind with garbage are painfully obvious to others. Statements like, “It’s the first time in history that fire melted steel!,” (Rosie O’Donnell) causes others to quietly ask, “What rock did SHE just crawl out from under?”

Thousands exhibit an appalling lack of intellectual curiosity and, instead, seek out men like Jeremiah Wright, who accuses the government of creating the AIDS virus in a deliberate attempt to kill black people, and Van Jones, one of the president’s advisors, who claims that pollution and toxins are deliberately funneled into black neighborhoods.

I don’t think we can attribute the popularity of such men solely to intellectual laziness. Their following can only be explained by the unfortunate propensity of so many people to deliberately seek out lies.

Deliberately feeding on garbage is not only stupid, it’s dangerous. The Bible speaks of such people in the second chapter of Second Thessalonians. By turning from the truth and making wickedness your “deliberate choice”, by deliberately feeding on lies, you are leaving yourself open to delusion. That delusion will cause you to accept the greatest Lie, the false messiah who will come to lead mankind to destruction.

This is serious business. You have a choice between lies and truth. Choose truth.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

POURING MONEY DOWN A RAT HOLE

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Have you ever thought about how much money this nation spends on foreign aid each year?

I did a little research and discovered that in 2006, the last year for which complete records are available, we gave away over $39,000,000,000.00 That’s right. Over thirty-nine BILLION dollars.

Here’s a list of only a few of the recipients of our generosity. The complete list is much more extensive.

Israel, $2,600,000,000
Egypt, $1,800,000,000
Colombia, $1,350,000,000
Jordan, $562,000,000
Georgia, $426,000,000
Kenya, $390,000,000
Philippines, $338,400,000
Ethiopia, $322,000,000
Ukraine, $280,000,000
Indonesia, $268,400,000
Nicaragua, $247,000,000
Haiti, $243,000,000
Mexico, $238,000,000
Bolivia, $223,600,000
Nigeria, $187,000,000
India, $173,000,000
Congo, $171,000,000
Nepal, $60,000,000
Russia, $53,000,000
West Bank/Gaza, $48,000,000
Uganda, $10,600,000

Note that we give Mexico $238 million annually. That’s in addition to the tens of billions of dollars Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, send home to their families in Mexico. That stream of dollars flowing into Mexico has recently surpassed oil as that nation’s largest source of income. Is it any wonder that Mexico has little interest in stemming the flow of illegal immigrants across its northern border? That nation has become a leech subsisting on the lifeblood of the United States.

And Nepal — $60 million? Nepal has a population of only 28 million and the last time I looked, they were being run by Maoists. Why not let China support them?

And then there’s Haiti with a population of only 9 million. We’re giving them $243 million of our taxpayer dollars. Why?

Added to this is the nearly $250 billion in charity the NonProfit Times estimates the American people give annually, and you have an astounding amount of money pouring out of this country to the rest of the world.

This outpouring of wealth from the American people is simply the result of our desire to help those we deem less fortunate than ourselves. However, the stated purpose of foreign aid is to support our foreign policy goals. If that’s our purpose, the program hasn’t been very successful. What have we received in return for these investments?

Israel is our friend — or was, before Obama threw it to the dogs. The others? The others wouldn’t care if we crash and burn. Seventy-five percent of the recipients of our largess oppose us in the United Nations. Perhaps the Beatles said it best: Can’t buy me love.

Okay. I hear you. You’re saying we have an obligation to help feed the world’s poor. How many of those billions and billions of dollars of foreign aid do you think make it past the greedy, corrupt governments of some of those nations and actually reach the poor? Not very much, I’d wager.

I suggest that Congress should end hand-outs to corrupt regimes and petty dictators, and let charity be handled by those who do it best — the American public.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT - PART 2

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You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

—Oscar Hammerstein II

There was so much material and so many dubious conclusions in the Newsweek article that it wasn’t possible to cover it all in one column, so here’s the follow-up.

Newsweek entitled its outrageous cover story “See Baby Discriminate” and included the subtitle, “Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color. What's a parent to do?”

I think the key word in that subtitle is “judge”. Liberal researchers concluded that because children NOTICE color differences in people’s skin, they necessarily JUDGE people according to those differences — and they expect you to interpret “judge” in the worst possibly way. Here’s a heads-up to all you liberal researchers: NOTICE is not a synonym for JUDGE.

The second study cited by Newsweek was carried out by Phyllis Katz, a professor at the University of Colorado. Katz showed photographs to 6-month-olds and determined that because they stared “significantly longer” at photos of people who were of a different skin color than their parents, the babies were somehow judging those people on the basis of race. We’re not told how long is “significantly longer”, nor are we given any indication of what kind of people were depicted in the photographs or whether there might have been other aspects of the depictions, besides race, that might have given the children cause to look longer at certain photographs.

Let me add another personal experience here. When my older son was less than a year old, I was sitting outside our on-post duplex with my son on my lap. When our neighbor came home, my son became very excited because he thought daddy was arriving. He didn’t notice the neighbor’s dark brown skin; he noticed the army uniform.

But back to the “study”. When these same children were 3 years old. Katz showed them photographs of other children and the 3-year-olds were asked to decide which ones they’d like to have as friends. This study is flawed on its face. Who in their right mind encourages children to choose friends solely on the basis of physical appearance? Any reasonably competent parent would encourage their children to choose friends based on character and commonalities, not appearance.

An interesting aside: On a particular online dating site, the “personality test” included four photographs of smiling people, head shots only, two male and two female, and you are asked to choose which ones are “sincere”. Both my son and I took the test, failed it, and then compared notes. The determination on the site was that the two with “crinkle lines” around the eyes were sincere, while the other two were not. However, that’s not the way we judged it. The two with the biggest smiles, despite the crinkle lines, struck both my son and me as “used-car salesmen” types who were simply TOO happy to be sincere. The two with the hesitant smiles stuck us as more honest. The surprising determination of the “experts” on the site indicates to me that the “experts” seldom make determinations based on real-life experience.

Back to the “study”. When the children were 5 or 6 years old, Katz gave them decks of cards with “drawings of people” on them and asked them to sort the cards into stacks. Katz noted that 68% sorted the cards on the basis of race, rather than gender.

The problems with this “study” are legion. Why did Katz use drawings, rather than photographs? How realistic were the drawings? Were the drawings depictions of faces only or of the entire person? If they were drawings of the entire person, did they include skinny, overweight, and unattractive people? If so, isn't it possible the children made certain judgments based on those aspects? Did the drawings give any indication of activities, such as sports gear, drawing tools, etc.? Did it occur to Katz that the children might react to the skill of the artist and the quality of the drawings, rather than to race or gender? If the drawings were of facial features only, gender would have been more difficult to determine. And, again, why would any reputable researcher use drawings, rather than photographs?

Because the focus of Katz’ study was race, it apparently never occurred to her that children might form judgments based on the quality of the art, rather than on the depiction of the color of someone’s skin. When I was 5 years old, my favorite storybook was one with outstanding illustrations, and I chose it as my favorite solely on the basis of those illustrations. Race, even storyline, had nothing to do with it; I was enamored of the drawings. I’m sure the possibility that 5-year-olds might select cards based solely on the quality of the artwork never even occurred to Katz.

Katz said of her studies, "I think it is fair to say that at no point in the study did the children exhibit the Rousseau type of color-blindness.” By “color-blindness”, does she mean the children did not notice variations in skin color? What? Is she crazy? Of COURSE, they noticed! But noticing skin color is NOT the same as bigotry.

In yet another “study”, an Ohio State University professor observed a first-grade class’s reaction to a black family portraying the family in Clement Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and to a black Santa Claus.

This is yet another flawed study. Children are not stupid. Even setting aside the fact that Santa Claus is a European tradition and, as such, is traditionally white, Moore’s poem clearly says of Santa, “His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.” When we read or listen to a story, we form pictures in our minds. After having listened to that line, is it any wonder the children objected that Santa couldn’t be black?

But perhaps the professor tweaked Clement Moore’s poem to suit herself? After all, she ended her little play with, “"Merry Christmas to all! Y'all sleep tight." “Ya’ll sleep tight”???? Pray tell, where is THAT line found in the original poem?

I’m sick to death of all these useless liberal “studies” and their dubious conclusions. Say. . . think how much money we could cut from the federal budget by simply eliminating funding for all these ridiculously useless "studies"!

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT

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You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

—Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein had it right: I think any sane person would agree that bigotry DOES have to be carefully taught.

Incredibly, Newsweek ran a cover story this week in which they cite a study by Birgitte Vittrup of the Children’s Research Lab at the University of Texas in which researcher’s concluded that children are bigots at birth.

Like many modern “studies” in which liberal “researchers” arrive at preconceived conclusions which the “studies” were designed to support, this conclusion is based not only on faulty data but on faulty logic.

Vittrup’s research was based on only 100 families, all white, and all from the same geographic area. (I find it interesting that liberals are able to see only white-on-black discrimination but never black-on-white prejudice.)

Vittrup instructed the families to show their 5-to-7-year-old children “multiculturally-themed” videos and then discuss race with them, based on a list of topics she provided. She was taken aback when some of the families refused, saying they didn’t want to point out skin color to their children.

Martin Luther King, Jr., dreamed of a world in which a man would be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. Liberals refuse to allow that dream to come true. They delight in pointing out skin color at every opportunity and insist that people be granted admission to universities and employed in the workplace not on the basis of their qualifications but on the color of their skin.

It comes as no surprise that since Ms. Vittrup’s world revolved around racial identification, she was appalled that some parents simply refused to label people according to their skin color.

Vittrup's mentor at the University of Texas, Rebecca Bigler, experimented with pre-school children by giving half red T-shirts and half blue T-shirts then, after a few weeks, questioning them about which group, the reds or the blues, were better. The children naturally exhibited “team pride” by responding that their group was better, smarter, etc. However, Bigler, whose focus was race, rather than human nature, interpreted these responses as the seeds of bigotry.
Frankly, I’m appalled at Vittrup’s and Bigler’s unfortunate habit of interpreting everything through the lens of race, rather than looking at white children simply as children.

My own child-raising experience is proof positive that children are not born bigots nor is refusing to focus on skin color a sure-fire way to turn them into bigots. I never mentioned skin color to my own two sons unless it was an absolutely essential part of a person’s description. I referred to people by their qualities, citing their words, actions and attitudes, rather than their race. I often wondered whether I was succeeding against the left’s nearly constant focus on race. I got my answer one day while watching a Steelers pre-game show with my older son. I was only half watching the program, which featured two sports commentators, a black man in a blue polo shirt and a white man in a red shirt. “Did you hear what he said!” my son exclaimed. I’d been only half-listening, so I asked him, “What who said?” His response was, “The guy in the blue shirt.” It never occurred to him to identify the men by race, because that aspect had never been given prominence and had never been made the focus of anyone’s identity or worth.

Children are NOT born racists; they must be carefully taught — and it’s liberals who, by their incessant focus on race, are doing the teaching.

If liberals — and blacks — truly want to move beyond race to Rev. King’s dream of being judged solely by the content of their character, they would do well to stop focusing solely on skin color and, instead, focus on each human being’s character and actions.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

CIVILITY & DECORUM

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The House of Representatives voted to censure Representative Joe Wilson for shouting, “You lie!” during Obama’s rambling speech to the joint session of Congress. The excuse given was that “civility and decorum” must be maintained in the House.

Aside from the fact that Representative Wilson was only saying out loud what many of us were shouting at our TV screens, one wonders why the Democrat majority in the House decided this particular bit of speech should be condemned, when so many other outrageous statements have gone unremarked. Here are a some examples.

Nancy Pelosi:

• "I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."

• "Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader. He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.''

• “I think the time has come to speak very frankly about the lack of leadership in the White House, the lack of judgment.”

• “The president of the United States [is] a total failure."

Harry Reid:

• “[Bush is] dangerously incompetent".

• “I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had.”

• “I think this guy [President Bush] is a loser.”

• “President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada and he betrayed the country.”

These are examples of the kind of “civility and decorum” the Democrat leadership practiced while George W. Bush was president.

Where was their outrage then? Where were their calls for civility and decorum? Have either Pelosi or Reid ever apologized? Were they ever censured by their colleagues?

The House’s censure of Representative Joe Wilson is just one more example of the left’s inconsistency and outrageous double-standards.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

THE 9-12 MARCH

On Saturday, September 12, 2009, people from all over America came together in Washington, DC, to make their voices heard.

They were not organized by any national group. They fit no mold. They were white and black, Republican and Democrat, libertarians and independents, laborers and professionals. Their only commonality was the fact that they all were Americans and they all were alarmed about the direction in which our nation is going.

The crowd stretched for a mile and estimates ranged from 60,000 to over a million. Besides the protest in Washington, there were concurrent demonstrations in villages, towns and cities across the nation.

In an article on World Net Daily on Saturday, Chelsea Schilling and Alyssa Farah reported, “A million or more rock Washington, Taxpayer march could be biggest rally ever in capital.” The article continued, “The capital was rocked today by a taxpayer march and rally that could be the biggest protest ever – potentially dwarfing the Million Man March and the Promise Keepers Rally.

“Though crowd estimates vary from as low as 60,000 to 70,000 according to ABC News to a high of 2 million by London Daily Mail, photographs and videos of the march and rally demonstrate its enormity.“ In fact, a spokesman for the National Park Service is quoted as saying, "It is a record.... We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."

The largest event ever held in Washington, DC – and yet World Net Daily reported that on Friday, the White House insisted it was “unaware” of the rally. If the Obama administration isn’t aware of an event of that enormity that’s happening right under its nose, one necessarily wonders about its awareness of events taking place elsewhere in the world.

How did the national media report the largest demonstration in years, perhaps ever, in Washington? What kind of coverage did they give this unprecedented protest by American citizens?

Interestingly, the most comprehensive report was found in the UK Daily Mail online. Here in the US, aside from Fox News Network, which covered it live, the event was virtually ignored.

After the fact, the Los Angeles Times opted to bash the man who’d suggested the protest by gleefully reporting, “Glenn Beck’s ‘9-12' logo based on communist and socialist designs.” However, the logo they depicted was NOT Beck’s 9-12 logo, but someone else’s poster advertising the march.

The Portland Progressive Examiner happily reprinted the Times’ fallacy, then expanded on the Times’ ignorance and stupidity by observing, “Good and decent Americans, the reasonable and wise, have known all along that Beck was a dangerous demagogue. But now the evidence points to something much worse.” They then revealed to the world their opinion that Beck is a closet communist. (Hmmm... that must be the reason he’s always citing the founding fathers!) And that, folks, pretty much sums up the intellectual capacity of those in today’s media.

At 11:47 PM Saturday, CNN posted a brief article on their website but rather than headline it, they hid it under Politics/Health Care in America”.

ABC News posted an article that attempted to portray the protestors as racists who were opposed to Obama simply because he’s black and noted that they were protesting “what they say is over-the-top spending.” Apparently, ABC doesn’t consider multiple trillions of dollars of national debt excessive.

I find it incredible that the media in this country can virtually ignore an event of this size. We heard about the so-called Million Man March for weeks, even though, by all accounts, it was poorly attended, yet that same press very deliberately suppressed news about one of the largest protests ever to occur in Washington. Remember when the press fancied themselves the watchdogs of democracy? Whatever happened to journalistic integrity?

David Axelrod, Obama’s senior advisor, when asked by Bob Shieffer on Face the Nation what he thought of the demonstration, dismissed the event by saying, “I don’t think it’s indicative of the nation’s mood... They don’t represent a mainstream view of this healthcare plan, and so I don’t think we ought to be distracted by that.” The citizenry is rising against Congress and the Obama administration, but Axelrod views it only as a distraction to be ignored?! Axelrod continued, “My message to them is, they’re wrong!”

Doesn’t it just give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to know your government holds you in such high esteem and is listening to your concerns?!

Glenn Beck has expressed optimism that we can take back our country, that we can drag it back from the brink of destruction. I’m not so sure.

Our nation was once a bright beacon of liberty to the rest of the world. However, we left the Constitution behind decades ago in our effort to set in place a nanny state. Since January 20, 2009, we’ve raced toward that communistic goal at break-neck speed. I fear our nation has passed the point of no return.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.

Obamacare

09/10/09

Wednesday night President Obama gave yet another speech on the health care “crisis” in this nation and attempted to browbeat into submission those who disagree with his plan to nationalize the health care industry.

I can’t help but wonder how he arrived at the conclusion that the American people wanted to hear another speech full of vague promises, childish finger-pointing and outright lies.
It was clear from his speech that the president had recently arrived from Neverland.

He promised to provide government-run health insurance to all Americans – without adding a single penny to the deficit.

He promised to twist the arms of insurance CEOs to force them to insure people with pre-existing conditions – without any increase in premiums.

He promised to save money by eliminating government waste – but refused to tackle government waste in Medicare, Medicaid, the food stamp program, and other welfare programs. Why not streamline those programs first? Isn’t that a logical first step?

He promised bipartisanship – while refusing to entertain suggestions from the opposition.

He insisted his plan would NOT insure illegal aliens – even though Democrats had voted down an amendment specifically designed to prohibit coverage of illegals.

And he told us our tax dollars would not pay for abortions under his plan – even though Democrats also voted down an amendment to the bill which would specifically prohibit coverage of abortions.

However, he was specific about one point. He clearly stated that everyone will be REQUIRED to purchase health insurance, whether or not we want it. His reasoning (dare we call it that?) was that young, healthy Americans with no interest whatsoever in health insurance must purchase it, anyway, so they won’t be a burden on the rest of us and “drag” the system down. What he REALLY meant to say was that government-run health care would require a sizable tax on all of us, young and old alike.

Obama made quite a big deal about his willingness to discuss “the truth” about the health care bill – but then excoriated those who, in recent weeks, .have actually read the bill and have been pointing out precisely what that bill contains.

Some glaring omissions included his failure to mention that this nation has the best health care in the world, so good that many people from all walks of life – including heads of state – travel to this country for health care.

He also failed to mention the long waits for treatment and the rationing of care in those countries that already have socialized medicine.

He failed to mention that if I neglect to purchase GOVERNMENT-REQUIRED health insurance, the IRS will levy a fine against me and it will collect it from my bank account when I file my federal income tax return.

Could this president have been any more disingenuous, any more confrontational, any more untruthful?

I doubt it.

© 2009 by Libbi Adams. All rights reserved.