The average age of the American servicemen who fought to liberate Europe from Fascism and the Pacific from Japanese Imperialism was nineteen.

Nineteen.

Think about what you were doing at nineteen. For me, the year was 1967, and I was still enjoying the benefits of a college deferment. It would be two more years before I would begin my four years of military service, and as a member of the U.S. Air Force I was never in any of the real danger usually associated with service during the Vietnam War.

Most of us can only imagine the mature decisions forced upon those teenage members of that Greatest Generation, as we have come to call them. Yet somehow military servicemen of every generation provide us with examples of heroism that cannot be found in any other walk of life, and today’s generation of young Americans is no exception.

Ross Andrew McGinnis, of Knox, Pennsylvania, was born on June 14, 1987, to Tom and Romayne McGinnis. Recognizing that he was not interested in attending college, Ross enlisted in the U.S. Army’s Delayed Entry Program on his seventeenth birthday, June 14, 2004. He finished high school, graduating in 2005, and then entered basic training.

He was nineteen when he died a hero’s death in Iraq on December 4, 2006.

He and his Army buddies had often speculated what each of them might do if faced with a split-second, life-or-death decision. Ross said he didn’t know what he might do. Now the whole world knows.

When Ross McGinnis saw an enemy grenade land in his humvee, he could have jumped from the vehicle. He had enough time, and his Army training told him to do just that. Yet somehow the lives of the other four soldiers in that vehicle were more important to him, and Ross threw himself on top of the grenade, pressing his back against it and absorbing the impact of the blast. He was killed instantly, of course, but he had saved the lives of the others: Sergeant First Class Cedric Thomas, Staff Sergeant Ian Newland, Sergeant Lyle Buehler and Specialist Sean Lawson.

For the rest of their lives, these four men will remember their teenage buddy, mature beyond his years, who in a split second decided that he was willing to sacrifice his life in order to give them a chance to go home, marry, have children, raise families, have careers, see their grandchildren running in the yard and enjoy all the freedoms only America can provide. One of them has since said that he will always feel guilty for the life Ross gave him.

For his action, nineteen-year-old Private First Class Ross Andrew McGinnis was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest honor the United States of America can bestow upon a military member.

President Bush, in an emotional presentation of the Medal last week at the White House, spoke of McGinnis’ sacrifice:

“No one outside this man’s family can know the true weight of their loss. But in words spoken long ago, we are told how to measure the kind of devotion that Ross McGinnis showed on his last day: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

“The Gospel also gives this assurance,” Bush continued. “‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ May the deep respect of our whole nation be a comfort to the family of this fallen soldier. May God always watch over the country he served, and keep us ever grateful for the life of Ross Andrew McGinnis.”

But perhaps the most poignant remarks came from Ross’s father, Tom:

“Our Bible tells us that God gave up His only son to die for us so that we may live. But Romayne and I are not gods. We can’t see the future, and we didn’t give our son to die, knowing that he will live again. We gave him to fight and win and come home to us and marry and grow old and have children and grandchildren. But die he did, and his mother, dad and sisters must face that fact and go on without him, believing that someday we will meet again. Heaven is beyond our imagination and so we must wait to see what it’s like.”

Indeed. Thank God for heroes like Ross McGinnis.
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© Copyright 2008 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and public policy advisor. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online, TheConservativeVoice.com and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers may e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.
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The just-stalled Senate bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions reflects a basic doctrine of the socialist religion: government bureaucrats are smarter and more effective managers than businessmen and should be empowered to set the rules for running private business.

The attitudes and energies underlying the proposed Senate legislation to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases accord with the basic conception of the first organized synthesizer of socialist doctrine, Henri de Saint-Simon. Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology in France, wrote that the basis of Saint-Simon’s entire theory of the socialist religion was that science should exercise hegemony over mankind.

Saint-Simon’s presumption was that private businessmen and individuals lacked competence to understand and to apply scientific principles to socialized (i.e., controlled by government for the public benefit) management of business. Only trained bureaucrats, either in government bureaus or placed in charge of business management, had the required knowledge to make business fully efficient and therefore productive of the greatest degree of benefit to the socialized political society.

Unfortunately, what passes for science today is a very weak reed for bureaucrats to lean upon. It is too often junk science, concocted by self-interested hot shots gunning for large research grants to fuel personal fame and fortune. Prominent among today’s junk science gambits is the man-made global warming hoax. Placing too much reliance upon unproved computer models with global implications is a dangerous policy, but precisely what Al Gore and his acolytes propose to do. One example of worldwide damage inflicted by Congressional dabbling in “science” is the idiocy of government mandating and subsidizing ethanol production.

Carbon emissions control will be far more destabilizing and will sharply reduce the nation’s wealth and reduce available goods and services.

In addition to the specific damage to be inflicted upon society by measures such as the Senate greenhouse gas legislation, there is a more pervasive and equally ominous effect: government intervention retards the advance of knowledge.

A Senate bill introduced by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.), and John Warner (R., Va.) to control carbon emissions ultimately would allow the Federal government to decide which of today’s private businesses will be allowed to survive. It doesn’t go that far now, but it would be difficult to find any regulatory salient that has not led to hundreds or thousands of supplemental regulations expanding the scope and authority of the initial regulatory action. This legislation is the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.

Of it, the Wall Street Journal observed:

Warner-Lieberman [legislation] would impose the most extensive government reorganization of the American economy since the 1930s.

For those unfamiliar with the 1930s as a baseline reference, that is the era of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, which imposed a socialist regime upon our nation for the first time in its history.

As a foretaste, reflect upon Congresswoman Maxine Waters’s threat to oil company executives to nationalize the petroleum industry.

Initially the Senate carbon emissions bill is disguised as a sort of free-market system based upon capping carbon emissions and creating a market in emission rights.

But the basic fact remains: this legislation puts the Federal government on the road to regulating all businesses that use any form of energy, which is to say, every business.

If no one in America’s political system pays attention to the messages delivered yesterday by the executives of the oil firms to the Senate judiciary committee, then U. S. economic fortunes are destined to decline. The politicians are living in a 1960s fantasy world, playing old and mythical Marxist themes on the alleged power of giant oil capitalists to control, manipulate and direct energy markets at the expense of the common man, the consumer.
Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 22 May 2008.

Even people who stay at home watching TV or using computers will pay a very big price, because almost everything we do uses some form of energy.

Make no mistake about it. A carbon emissions control program, once enacted, will metastasize like a virulent cancer.

Hilary Benn, the [UK] Environment Secretary, said: “The Government is committed to building a low-carbon economy, here and around the world. That means a complete change in the way we live… The (UK) Independent, May 2, 2008.

This socialist mindset echoes the pronouncements of Sir William Beveridge, a prime mover in Britain’s socialist Labour government after World War II:

…the State,” he wrote, ” in [regulating unemployment] is not wholly master of events so long as it desires to preserve the freedom of individuals……the State cannot undertake the responsibility for full employment without full powers.

In other words, central planning necessary for imposition of socialism can not become effective without subordinating the rights of individuals to the goals of the planners.

So too in regulating greenhouse gasses. The government will gradually be compelled to assert full control over all carbon emissions, and the cost will be borne by the little guy, the lower-income groups.

Rebel Labour backbenchers fear that plans to extend higher road taxes for gas-guzzling cars to models registered as long ago as 2001 will infuriate motorists on tight budgets, who bought older cars because they are cheaper, and who cannot afford to upgrade to cleaner engines. The Guardian, May 18, 2008.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

Reports of sycophantically driven crowds of Obama supporters are making news and bloating the blogs across the nation. Can this phenomenon be explained?  

In a recent offering in The Christian Post, Friday June 6, 2008 under “Black Ministers Watching their Words on Obama” AP Writer Dionne Walker said “It’s a historical time for black people; we cannot ignore what’s going on.” No one would expect the black community to ignore what is going on, we would only hope that they would look deeper into the reasons for supporting Sen. Obama, beyond the fact that he is an African American. 

If they can ignore, refusing to pledge to the flag, associations with racist pastors, support for abortions and gay marriages and a wife who takes no pride in her own country then all you have left is the fact Mr. Obama is a black American. It is indeed something to be proud of considering America’s history but hardly anything to be guided by. 

Widely known ministers are not immune to the snowballing popularity of Sen. Obama. TV Evangelist TD Jakes has jumped onboard the B.O. train with tacit support and strong affirmations that will no doubt remove doubt from those who are straddling the fence on the candidates. 

Pastor Clenard Childress leader of New Jersey based L.E.A.R.N. Northeast is shocked and deeply saddened by Jakes reaction to Obama’s clinching the democratic nomination and said “the man Time Magazine and CNN once referred to as “America’s Best Preacher,” is showing that biblical moral values are not his top priority.” Childress also said “it will be difficult for Jakes to preach biblical moral values to his church members now that he has aligned himself with a politician who has no problem with abortion and homosexuality. One News Now, June 6, 2008. Pastor Clenard is himself an African American minister. 

Ministers have to tread lightly when it comes to endorsing candidates because of IRS non-profit 501-C issues but that has not gone very far in this heated election to curb name dropping, public congratulating and innuendo. Traditionally black churches have yielded time, funds and pulpits to political candidates more than the white churches but the separation of church and state issues have boiled to the top in recent years but never more than in this election. 

One blogger responded to the Christian Post article by saying he was an African American but would not let his decision be guided by anything but Obama’s record and what he stands for. It was Obama’s stand and his record that convinced this black voter to look elsewhere. We can hope for more of this kind of discernment but so far it is more the exception that makes the rule than anything else. 

It is hard for some believers and almost all non-believers to understand that moral decline and prophetic fulfillment grow in equal and direct proportion to each other. As the moral bar is lowered the prophetic bar is raised. More scripture warnings and promises are being fulfilled in America than at any time in the past 100 years. 

Although it is an unpleasant aspect of the bible the promises of an apostate church are inevitable as the time of the antichrist approaches. It is called “the falling away” (2Th 2:3) in more conventional terms it is the “social gospel.” Concern for the environment, aids in Africa and the plight of the poor are socially acceptable causes and can be engaged without calling individuals to personal responsibility and repentance. 

The ancient prophet Daniel said more about the second coming of Christ than almost all the prophets put together. He warned that in a time when knowledge was greatly increased and world travel was a common experience around the globe that lines would be drawn. The wicked would do worse than ever before and the faithful would be stronger than ever before. Those lines are becoming increasingly apparent in America. 

The book of Revelation which was given to the Apostle John by Christ himself during Johns forced stay on the island of Patmos reiterates Daniels warning. Christ said “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” (Rev 22:11) More than at any time in history the emphasis on the gospel message is now prophetic in nature. Although the love of Christ can never be eliminated from the message the warning and call to repentance becomes the main thrust of the message as the judgment and the second coming of Christ approaches.

Those emphasizing this hard aspect of the gospel will not be well received and fewer people will respond; but that too is prophetic. The meteoric rise of an inexperienced Senator from Illinois who represents the opposite of everything the founders of this country first brought forth is sad but it is prophecy fully underway. 

America should take warning from the well used adage “take heed what you ask for because you just might get it.”  

Rev Michael Bresciani is an author and columnist for several online sites and magazines. His articles are now read throughout the world. For more articles, news, movie reviews and more visit The Website for Insight at http://www.americanprophet.org

Call it the Gore Curse. In 2000 Albert Gore had a slim margin of popular votes in Florida until the Supreme Court shut down what had already become an endless process of re-counting them. When, as Vice President, Gore presided over the counting of the Electoral College votes in the Senate, it was George W. Bush who was the winner.

That was precisely the way the Founding Fathers intended the election of a President should be. It is also pretty much a mystery to most voters who assume that whoever gets the most popular votes is the winner.

As Sen. Mitch M. McConnell says in an interesting book on the subject, “Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College”, this unique instrument of the Constitution, was “the only thing that kept us from an even worse national nightmare.”

I recall thinking at the time how calmly Americans accepted the Supreme Court decision and the outcome of the election. The judges had read the Constitution!

What many Americans do not realize when they go to the polls is that presidential elections are “state-by-state battles to accumulate a majority in the Electoral College.” As McConnell explains it, “When our citizens go to vote, they are technically not voting directly for president. Rather, they are voting for a slate of electors who are pledged to vote for a particular presidential candidate.”

The Constitution is such a devilishly clever—nay, brilliant—instrument of government that I can’t blame the average citizen for a lack of understanding of it, but its essential principles are not difficult to understand. First, all power resides in the nation’s citizens. They in turn elect Electoral College and congressional representatives on the basis of population per state (updated by regularly scheduled census) to conduct the nation’s affairs.

Thus, several weeks after an election, those electors meet in their state capitals where they cast two ballots—one for president and one for vice president. Those ballots are then sealed and sent to Congress to be opened and counted in January. In theory they are free to vote for whomever they want. In practice, they are party activists and loyal supporters of the presidential candidate in their state. All the votes are then counted in a joint session of Congress.

That’s how the President and Vice President are chosen! One candidate must receive a majority of the electoral votes cast to become President. These days, that number is 270, out of 538 total electoral votes. Failure to achieve that would throw the election into the House of Representatives where they would vote as a state delegation, not as individuals.

It is ingenious and it reflects the fact that America is a republic composed of separate republics, the States, each of which has a constitution of its own. The Constitution delineates the specific powers and limitations on the federal government while specifically stating in the Tenth Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The whole purpose of the Constitution is to defuse power so that neither the President, nor the Supreme Court, nor Congress could become a tyranny over the people. It deliberately made the process of passing legislation laborious in order to slow it down for adequate deliberation and for the people’s voices to be heard.

As Gary L. Gregg II, the editor of “Securing Democracy” points out, “Properly understood, the Electoral College and its origins point to the ideas and values that undergird the entire America constitutional system as these were embedded in the foundations of the Electoral College itself.”

Everything about the Constitution is about the republican form of government that is dependent on “the consent of the governed.” That implies, as it should, that citizens have a responsibility to be involved as voters and be responsive in terms of letting their elected representatives know what they wish their government to do.

As the Democrat Party met on Saturday, May 31, to figure out what to do with their horrid primary system that left Michigan and Florida hanging like so many chads, the argument that Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan put forth was that two nearly all-white States, New Hampshire and Iowa, should not and do not have the right to go first on the primary calendar and thus force candidates to spend an inordinate amount of time and money in order to influence the other state primaries.

This is why the nomination process came down to the power of the Democrat Party’s super delegates. It is the Gore curse. Hillary Clinton may have the popular vote, but Barack Obama has the delegate votes. She could argue she is more “electable”, but he had worked within the system devised to secure the party’s nomination.

In January 2009, the Electoral College will have the final vote as to who becomes the next President of the United States of America. This is precisely the outcome the Founding Fathers and the Constitution intended.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com.

   

In a movie role miscasting that would be akin to picking Michael Moore to portray George W. Bush, a new flick that is starting production soon will feature an unlikely actor as the president of the United States of America. Leftist activist, and virulent anti-American Danny Glover has been tapped to star as a U.S. president that will be confronted with a “global cataclysm” in the film “2012.”

There’s a “cataclysm” alright. That such a U.S. hater would be picked to star as the occupant of the White House is as big a disaster as can be imagined. It is just amazing how Hollywood likes to stick their fingers in the eyes of the American public. Of all the actors in LaLaLand that they could pick to take the role of POTUS, they have to pick Glover, one of the worst anti-Americans in the business. And in a business over flowing with folks with anti-American ideas, that is really saying something.

The film is being written and directed by Roland Emmerich the director responsible for the recent stinker “10,000 BC.” After finishing up with her role as Condi Rice in Oliver Stone’s Bush’ debacle, super cute Thandie Newton is also reported to be in talks to play another part she is utterly unsuited for, Danny Glover’s daughter!

So, why do I say that Glover is the least likely actor to portray an American president? Let’s review just a few of Glover’s greatest hits, if you will.

In 2001, just after 9/11 Glover spoke to an anti-death penalty forum at Princeton University. There he said the following: “One of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country, whether it’s been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever.” And later added, “I’ve been an advocate for peace my whole life. But one of the main purveyors of violence in this world is this country.”

He also said that he would be against the death penalty for bin Laden at that same appearance.

In 2003, Glover said that Americans showed a “rabid [post-9/11] nationalism that has its own kind of potential of being maniacal, in some sense.”

Glover has also announced support for murderous dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and has visited both dictators several times each.

Glover has allowed a socialist magazine to use his words of praise to sell their rag. For the Monthly Review he says that, “it’s critical to have a magazine that challenges us to think, inspires us to action, and makes us realize that the impossible is only difficult, not insurmountable. That magazine is Monthly Review.”

In a recent interview with the Independent newspaper, Glover calls Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez a “friend,” and a “business” associate and makes the absurd claim that Chavez doesn’t control the media in Venezuela.

In the Independent interview he also launched into an odd little diatribe against the U.S. and spoke as if HE were a South American.

“The changes happening in Latin America are enormous. We’ve been under the heel of US political and economic aspirations for centuries. What’s happening here is extraordinary.”

The writer of the piece was a bit incredulous at Glover’s absurd “we,” and rightfully so. “Notice the ‘we’?,” the Independent writer wrote, “This is Glover, an American actor, sitting in the breakfast room of a hotel in London, talking about events in Caracas…”

And these are just some of the far left, anti-American escapades from the Danny glover saga. It would take pages and pages to get them all in.

Aside from the fact that he is one of the most outspoken anti-Americans in Hollywood, he is also one of the worst actors in the town. So, he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

Still, to cast one of the most loud detractors of the U.S.A. as the president of the same is ridiculously unbelievable. But, it sits perfectly well with the Hollyweird mentality.

But one thing that really galls me, is Glover’s bin Laden comment. Imagine, having a president that would refuse the death penalty for someone like bin Laden! THIS is the sort of man that Hollywood thinks is ideal to act the role of POTUS?

(Photo credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP / Getty)