In the 1960′s and 1970′s conservatives railed against those elements of the anti-war movement in America being led by “agents of a foreign power hostile to the interests of  the United States,” which was how one of them, the National Lawyers Guild, was described by a panel of Congress.

One of those conservative groups, Young Americans for Freedom, was founded with a magazine cover article taking aim at the leftwing critics, entitled ‘HUAC AND ITS ENEMIES” – which focused on the House UnAmaerican Affairs Committee which labeled NLG as “hostile” to the interests of America.

The self-described “civil libertarians” of that time didn’t like the idea of government investigating those leftwing activists who advocated the violent overthrow of the United States government, and who were accepting help from foreign powers such as the Communist Soviet Union.

Fast forward to 2012.  We have for the past few years heard that America’s government – once again – is being too repressive in the “war on terror” and that our civil rights are being threatened in the name of fighting the terrorists.

We see “Occupy Wall Street” marching in the streets – reminiscent of the anti-war, anti-America, anti-capitalism, leftwing protests of the 1960′s and 1970′s.

They are once again blocking traffic and stopping people from getting to work.  They are once again breaking the law in the name of “resistance”.

Ironically, that very same NLG that was on the cover of that conservative youth magazine in 1960, has been seen giving counsel and legal advice to the “Occupy Wall Street” lawbreakers of today.

Forward to June 1, next Friday.  A very realistic movie is coming out telling the story of a government that really did clamp down on those who – they claimed – were “agents of a foreign power hostile to the interests of” the country.

The movie is For Greater Glory.  It stars Andy Garcia.  It isn’t fiction.

For Greater Glory isn’t about the United States government clamping down on 1960′s leftists who advocate violence and who received money, training and help from Soviet Russia, nor about 1980′s Democrats who ran for office with funding and other help from Communist China.

This is not a movie about Occupy Wall Street and their claims that the capitalists are enslaving us, or that America is a police state.  Far from it.

This is a movie about what happened when the government of Mexico earlier this century, decided it did not want the Catholic Church to continue to operate in Mexico.

About what the government did to stop what they regarded as “agents of a foreign power” – the Catholic Church and its priests and its followers (which Dear Reader you should by now realize if you are new as my reader, includes the undersigned).

In light of the recent American Bishop’s call for civil disobedience by Catholics if the federal government’s new “mandate” (ie. edict) to force all of us to have and to pay for infanticide insurance isn’t repealed, it is a true story of the past, which could very well repeat in America in this next year.

Already there are jurisdictions in America where the actions of the government have shut down the charitable work of the Roman Catholic Church (see my earlier report here at RED STATE).

Andy Garcia’s movie is about much more than civil disobedience.  When the government decides it has had enough of the criticism of people who – they think – answer to foreigners (ie. Pope in Rome, God in Heaven), they ban the church from their country.

The “Cristeros War” is the result – a revolution against the “revolutionaries” of Mexico and it really did happen – 1926 to 1929.

The very same people who took so seriously the extremist claims of the 1960′s that it was merely “free speech” to advocate violent revolution in America, who give so much media coverage to the “Occupy Wall Street” attacks on America’s free enterprise system, are now the ones suppressing this movie by ignoring it and by not showing it in movie theaters.

Andy Garcia’s movie is a real story, not Hollywood fiction.

This movie shows the persecution of Catholics, the banning of their religion from the entire country, the capture, torture and execution of Catholic priests and defenders of the faith – Saints of God later recognized as such by their (my) Church.

For Greater Glory shows not just passive resistance but violent resistance led eventually by the retired general who is played by Andy Garcia in this movie.

The stirring movie trailer (please.  stop what you are doing.  Take 3 minutes to view/listen to this movie trailer right now, click HERE) may very well reduce practicing Catholics and all people of faith to tears as they realize first, this is a true story and second, as they ponder the possibility that America itself is on the same path as Mexico in the early part of this century.

Then as now, the government got sick and tired of being criticized by Catholic priests and bishops.

Then as now, the government struck back to eliminate the threat to its rule.  Yes we are on the same path and yes, this movie is a graphic and I pray stirring warning to America.

Those hero Catholics of Mexico believed that they should only render unto Caesar that which is his, as our Lord said.  For matters of conscience and faith they followed Christ the King, and hence adopted the name Cristeros (ie. Cristo Rey).

The open war to capture, torture and kill Catholics in Mexico finally ended with assistance from the United States and the influence of the Knights of Columbus although the extreme anti-Catholic policy of the Mexican government continued.

Pope Pius XI spoke out against that persecution and for the Cristeros, and several of the priests and rebels – portrayed in this movie – were later canonized as Saints of the Catholic Church.

I went to their movie website for the movie to check local place/time to watch when it comes out on June 1 and learned that there’s nothing within 25 miles, and in fact, that I have to travel 78 miles to see the movie.

So that’s what it means when a movie is put out “independently.”  It means Andy Garcia and his backers are way out on a limb, and that this movie is only going to be seen by a lot of people, if some of us speak out loud and clear.

Facebook just sucked all the air out of the room for the past week of hysteria and hyping to sell stock.

But a true story of resistance to the government shutting down free speech, suppressing Christians, is not only invisible as a news item but is impossible to see without interstate travel and a full day trip to see it.

America’s news media has their priorities straight:

Facebook is the major news item and helping them sell their “first day stock offering” yesterday was the news of the week.

The very recent call by Catholic Bishops to stop the government from forcing us to obey what we consider a mortal sin – supporting the killing of innocent life with infanticide “service” – is virtually ignored by the “major media” (see my earlier report here at RED STATE).

It is time for Christians and all people of faith to fight back.

Andy Garcia’s movie, co-staring Eva Longoria, doesn’t have to foretell the future of America but can instead be our call to arms to alert all good people what could happen, if we are not outspoken now in defense of the Bill of Rights and especially of our First Amendment right to exercise our own freedom of conscience.

Resistance and standing up to the government and to their friends of the news media and to those who operate movie theaters, can begin right now with angry phone calls to ALL of your neighborhood movie theaters asking them why the heck aren’t they showing this movie?

There are many different ways and many different avenues to pursue and use your freedom of speech and I pray that you will speak out for this wonderful movie right now while you can.

A simple start is to circulate this link, urging people to read this story and to commit yourself to do whatever you must to be allowed to watch this movie and to recommend this movie on Friday, June 1 or on that weekend when they count “First Weekend” attendees.

For Greater Glory depicts the early stages of what we are seeing in America today when our own government goes after people of faith and goes all out to suppress their influence.

Rather than their taking sides in the suppression of people of faith, movie theater operators ought to be “fair and balanced,” let us see the movie, and let us decide whether in fact it is true, that there’s For Greater Glory we can have on this earth, than in following Christ, The King.

I strongly urge my friends here to make phone calls to your pastors, priests and rabbis and ask them to join you in an effort to bring this movie to your neighborhood on June 1.

Or else this sad story of what the government did to people of faith in Mexico not so many years ago, could repeat in America.

Those who ignore history may be doomed to repeat it – and what happened in Mexico to the followers of Christ the King, ought not happen in America in 2012.

This is not a story about Mexico.  It is not a story about Catholics or even about Christians.

For Greater Glory is a story of what will happen when the restraints placed upon the government of America by the founding fathers in the Bill of Rights, are allowed to be ignored, and the government of Barack Obama is allowed to suppress their Christian critics.

You don’t have to follow “Christ the King” to be alarmed but we ought all of us, to be watching Andy Garcia and the Cristeros, on June 1, as a very small way we object to the path America is on today.

**

HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there.  I maintain a 5x a week, weekdays writing schedule at RED STATE.

You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is).  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

Will this be the 2012 election map?

If the Obama administration keeps up their War on Coal (literally: they consider coal more dangerous than terrorism), quite possibly. And it may be at least partially because of coal.

Read More →

Will this be the 2012 election map?

If the Obama administration keeps up their War on Coal (literally: they consider coal more dangerous than terrorism), quite possibly. And it may be at least partially because of coal.

Read More →

Recent headlines highlight President Obama’s “war on Catholics.”  I’ve written of this several times myself.  (most recently HERE).

The Catholic Bishops have called for a “fortnight for freedom” of events to teach and commemorate America’s historic protection of religious freedom and the threat they face from the Obama Administration – a two week period ending on the 4th of July this year.

But the “war on the Church” as Newt Gingrich called it in one of the GOP debates, is much broader than simply an attack on Catholics.

David Barton of Wallbuilders has highlighted 51 “counts” in an indictment against what he calls the “most biblically-hostile U.S. President” in history in a recent article at his website.

Barton contents that this is a war not simply against Catholics, and not just against Christians but against anyone who is a reader and a believer in the Bible as the word of God.

He describes 16 acts of hostility by the Obama Administration towards people of biblical faith.

Barton specifically showcases 10 acts of hostility from the Obama led military toward people of Biblical faith.

David Barton’s article describes 17 acts of hostility toward biblical values which should be found offensive by anyone – Jew or Christian – who believes in and are inspired by the Bible.

And Barton’s article – replete with 53 specific footnotes to document his “indictment” – lists 8 acts of preferentialism for Islam in their literal “war against Christians.”

Those of little or or no faith may still understand that if the protection against federal power being used for or against a religion is this easily pushed to the side without a major backlash then none of the protections offered to us in the Bill of Rights will be (dare I use the word) sacred any longer.

For example, I have seen people who do not use firearms and are conservatives, act very bored with the subject of the defense of gun rights, thinking this is a battle that does not effect them.

But if the government can ignore the clear language of the 2nd amendment protection for “our right to keep and bear arms” then they can get away with anything, and so we must stand with gun owners.

And so here is yet another example of a clear prohibition against the government, being ignored – a constraint placed there by our Founders who were worried about government threatening our freedom.

It is rather unmistakable the meaning of the First Amendment:  ”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

And yet there is David Barton’s clear documentation – to supplement the Catholic Bishop’s recent “proclamation” where they protest the assault on their religious freedom – of the Obama Administration’s “war on faith.”

For example, Barton cites the Army’s order to Catholic Chaplains that they were not allowed to read a letter to parishioners from the Catholic Bishops.  This unprecedented interference with a Sunday sermon was never overturned.  (see Army Silences Catholic Chaplains)

So why should people who are Jewish or non-Catholic Christians care?

Because a precedent like this establishes that the federal government may go ahead and safely ignore the First Amendment’s pesky prohibition of their doing what exactly they just did.  What part of “…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” could possibly confuse anyone?

And what part of: if they can ignore the First Amendment restraint on the government they can ignore ANY other constraint on government power, confuses you?

It ought to be very clear why those who prefer the government constrained – as the founding fathers intended – ought to be very upset with the Obama war on faith.

How about your being forced to help abort a baby, if you work at a hospital?  That’s old news – it happened in February, 2009 – when the Obama administration announced that they have revoked “conscience protection” and it was implemented in 2011.  (see Obama to Lift “Conscience” Rule for Health Workers and Obama Admin. Changes Bush “Conscience” Provision for Health Workers.

Perhaps you do not agree with the U.S. Catholic Conference of Catholic Bishops and their so openly anti-abortion policy.

Perhaps you believe that those pesky “social issues” people should be a little bit more silent.

But does it bother you at all that the Obama Administration has specifically eliminated federal grants to aid victims of human trafficking to the Bishop’s organization because of their anti-abortion stance?

Oh.  Perhaps you are a conservative who prefers the government should be the sole source of charitable assistance to people in need?  Oops.  That’s a bit of an oxymoron.

In other words, do you have to agree with the position of the Catholics to agree the federal government is clearly conducting a “war on religion” in this cut off of federal aid?

From my vantage point as a conservative I’d just as soon have the government competely out of the charitable business and leave charities and churches to go about this important work.

But I object most strongly to the Obama Administration using their pro-abortion litmus test to single out the Catholic Church for retribution like this.

Do you recall Barack Obama deliberately removing the phrase referring to “the Creator” when he claims to be quoting from the Declaration of Independence?  He’s done it seven times and David Barton’s article documents it.

President Obama in May, 2009 refused to host services for the federally mandated “National Prayer Day” at the White House.  But he has been happy to host similar events at the White House for the Ramadan holiday.

Which is the worst transgression against people of faith out of the 51 listed by David Barton, in your view?

Are there any you wish to add (please do in the comment section and if possible include any citation)?

Is David Barton’s list of 51 specific examples of attack by Barack Obama on people of faith, sufficient to arouse both Christians and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, to defeat Barack Obama and those Senators and Congress who have assisted his “war on faith” which tramples our First Amendment protection?

I suggest we start that “Fortnight for freedom” called for by the Catholic Bishops to educate and mobilize people of faith and those who understand that if you can ignore the First Amendment you can ignore the rest too – early.  Why wait until the last two weeks before the 4th of July?

David Barton of Wallbuilders has done a splendid job as he consistently does, and his work deserves wider distribution.

* HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is).  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

How about releasing convicted felons serving jail time, if it can be shown that their children are bona fide American citizens, and are in danger of being raised by foster parents or placed up for adoption because one or both parents are in jail?  Oh, you think that sounds insane?

Incredibly, that is exactly what the pro-illegals group called the Latino Policy Coalition is now demanding.  They just filed a 10 page “official complaint for the Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations Human Rights Council” about America’s trampling on the “rights” of the children.

Effectively, they are saying in their April “news” announcement about their undated 10 page “complaint” that if America puts people in jail for breaking our laws and they happen to be parent, then we are violating “human rights” and should have the United Nation’s come after us.

At stake are the “rights” of children of – they report – 5.5 million “undocumented” aliens, ie. illegals.

This is their idea of what the U.N.’s “Universal Declaration of Rights” and the nine Articles of the “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child” mean.

It means that if we arrest and hold someone for breaking our law – such as illegal immigrants – and they have children, then we are being anti-family and anti-child.

The loony left Latino Policy Coalition calls the American jail system a “gulag” where there are 5,100 children who are now – and they capitalize the word – MISSING – and so their “rightful parents” cannot find them and retain custody either here or in Latin America.

For those too young to recall, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote The Gulag Archipelego, published in 1973, in which he described a system of secret jails in the old Soviet Union where the Communists had imprisoned dissenters like him.

It is an Orwellian twist of logic in the extreme to describe the American penal system – however imperfect it undoubtedly is – as a “gulag” that in any way compares to that old Soviet Communist system which Solzhenitsyn described.

Showing the most fundamental disconnect between reality and leftwing la la land the “Coalition” says in their complaint that “human rights advocates” from across America and around the world should stand together to “end these blunt violations of perhaps the oldest and most fundamental of human rights – a parent’s right to raise and care for their own child.”

And so, the United Nations should demand that America give them a list of affected children and stop removing children from the care of illegals, just because they were locked up and put in jail.  And of course, the children should be “reunified” with their parents.

In fact, the “complaint, signed by former San Francisco City and County Supervisor Jim Gonzalez, now the “Chair” of the “Latino Policy Coalition,” demands that the U.N. force President Obama

Let me weigh in with an alternative, my own modest counter proposals for parent illegals.

(1) How about we add charges to what those rare illegals who have been arrested for breaking our laws, already face?  They broke the law and were lousy parents, and they should pay for that crime against their own children.

The Leftwing Loco Latino group demands a “writ” of habeus corpus” requiring him to produce a list of arrested parent-illegals?  Oh?

May I suggest instead a “writ” of “habeus corpus” from the President of all the people who were NOT yet arrested for breaking the law, and of those, how many broke the law and are putting their children in harms way, and when will you protect those children?

(2) While the “Coalition” is prattling on about the “rights of the parents” may I suggest that the children have a right to have parents who aren’t breaking the law?

There are no “rights” of parents.  The book I read doesn’t refer to this anywhere nor does American law.

This is America folks.  It is the CHILD who has the rights.  It is the parent who has the responsibility to take care of their children and not put them in harms way.

The children of illegals have ipso facto had their rights taken away by a law breaking illegal.  We should file a complaint against Barack Obama for not enforcing the law against the parent, see #1 above.

(3) We should more vigorously enforce existing law against employers who hire illegal aliens because they are enabling behavior which hurts the children.  Not to mention, breaking the law in the first place.

(4) We should do a better job of protecting our borders from parents bringing children on such a dangerous trip while they are committing a crime, and prosecute them not just for their illegal border crossing but also for their endangerment of a child.

(5) If parents who are breaking two laws – illegally crossing the border and endangering their child – are convicted then their children should immediately be put up for adoption if they are American citizens by birth.  The children will be safer in an environment of law abiding parents.

(6) We should amend the Constitution so that the Court decision creating “anchor babies” is reversed.  It was most certainly not the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment to allow pregnant illegals to cross the border, have a baby here, and with their new “American citizen child” then become deportation-proofed.

The actual language of the 14th amendment is very clearly NOT intended to include illegals’ children: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

If they are citizens of another country and here illegally then they are subject to the jurisdiction of THAT OTHER country not this one.

The court erred in ruling otherwise – they just created a “right” to citizenship which was never intended.  An amendment should be adopted making clear what the law is.

The Latino Policy Coalition says America should be punished and we should free parents of anchor babies who broke American law.

I suggest that we should add charges to what they are already facing, and charge more people with breaking our laws and with endangering their children by their illegal conduct.

The alternative is to say that people who are in jail should be allowed a “Get out of Jail Free” card if they have children who are American citizens.

As for taking care of children, that is the easiest part.

Stop the war on Christians in America, eliminate the mandates (ie. edicts) under Obamacare which has already forced the Catholic Church to stop providing foster care and adoption services in certain jurisdictions.  The Catholic Bishops complained about this in a “proclamation” which includes this blunt report,

“Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.”

(see United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: a Statement on Religious Liberty“)

(also see my previous report here at RED STATE on this very topic, New Catholic Bishops’ Counter-Attack vs Barack Obama assault on Religious Liberty).

It is absurd to complain about your concern for children when their parents broke the law, while non-government groups such as the Catholic Church, are being forced out of business by the Obama Administration.

The complaint should be filed with the “U.N. Rights of Children” against Barack Obama except for this.

It isn’t American law – our U.S. Senate has never ratified this treaty and is not bound by it.

Parents don’t have “rights” to their children.  The children are not property.

The children are not your “life,” nor your “liberty” nor your “pursuit of happiness.”

Children are a loan from almighty God and under our laws and under His law, it is the responsibility of parents to care for their children in a responsible, loving way that doesn’t endanger them.

If this “Leftwing Loco Latino” group wanted to do some good for the children of poor people and illegals they should help stop tax dollars being given to Planned Parenthood, which does a lot worse to children than their complaint alleges against the United States.

As the Latino Policy Coalition may not have noticed, millions of children are being killed by abortion.  That is to say the least, a rather severe abridgement of their rights.

It is the rights of the children to have parents who take care of them, which is being endangered.  It is endangered by the actions of illegals, by those who support illegals and by the administration of Barack Obama which is putting out of business Christian organizations which love children and are able to help them.

The crime against the children is also a crime against God’s law.  We should demand more vigorous enforcement of the law, a defense of religious liberty so that church sponsored groups can help these children, and demand the politicians who are scared to death of defying “children’s rights groups” should get off the dime and do their job.

*

HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is).  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

Pennsylvania’s going to be an interesting place this November: incumbent Senator Bob Casey is in the unenviable position of having to explain to half of his constituents why he’s not really like President Obama, while explaining to the other half why Bob Casey actually is. If you’re wondering how Senator Casey plans to square that circle; the plan is to ensure that he does not.

Along those lines RedState talked last week with Tom Smith, who won the Republican nomination for Senate.  Tom is a businessman with a history in the coal industry – you know, the industry that Democrats hate – and we talked about both that, and the race generally:

Tom’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Pennsylvania’s going to be an interesting place this November: incumbent Senator Bob Casey is in the unenviable position of having to explain to half of his constituents why he’s not really like President Obama, while explaining to the other half why Bob Casey actually is. If you’re wondering how Senator Casey plans to square that circle; the plan is to ensure that he does not.

Along those lines RedState talked last week with Tom Smith, who won the Republican nomination for Senate.  Tom is a businessman with a history in the coal industry – you know, the industry that Democrats hate – and we talked about both that, and the race generally:

Tom’s site is here.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

More bad news for those who think that Mitt Romney should follow Rachel Maddow’s advice on how to run for President by “ekta-sketching” to the left, now that he is the “presumptive” GOP nominee.

Romney has the leftwing blogosphere and the handful of people who watch media outlets like MSNBC on full battle alert both before and after his appearance this past Saturday morning at Liberty University in Virginia, the college founded by one of the fathers of the Christian right in America, Dr. Jerry Falwell and today run by his son and namesake with unabashedly conservative-Christian principles.

Rachel Maddow’s blog alerted and warned Mitt Romey that he “won’t find the mainstream in Lyncherg” right out in the headline of a recent posting.

In both her advance TV show and then on her blog, the far-left media “celebrity” of MSNBC warns that any attempt to portray himself as a “moderate” in the general election against Mitt Romney would be hurt if he went ahead to speak at Liberty.

“Madcow” Maddow’s blog complains that Romney’s decision to make such an appearance “suggests he’s still concerned about shoring up the religious right’s support – or at a minimum, he’s hoping to win by mobilizing the base, centrists be damned.”

Some here at RED STATE have penned notes in the past suggesting their serous upset when I say that they sound just like Rachel Maddow when they attack the Rick Santorum “values voters” but you can be the judge as her blog complains “whatever the motivation, if Romney’s looking for the American mainstream, he won’t find it at Liberty.

There have always been atheists and more liberal-conservatives (if I may coin a phrase) who think that national defense conservatives (neocons is their name for them) and/or activists motivated by faith, are more of a danger to the Republic, than is Barack Obama and the left.

Over 90% of those who voted for Ron Paul in New Hampshire for example, admitted in exit polls that they had voted in the last election either for Barack Obama or for a third party candidate and that if their candidate does not win, they will do the same thing again in 2012.

To such people – and I’ve read their “comments” here at RED STATE – the worst thing in the world is that Mitt Romney should pay any attention at all to the Rick Santorum values voters.

So this essay reports the really bad news for them – Mitt Romney sounded remarkably like Rick Santorum this past Saturday.  Mitt Romney’s not listening to you and Rachel Maddow.  He’s listening to- and even cited Rick Santorum – in his remarks at Liberty University.

He made writers like this unashamedly Christian-conservative writer, happy as can be, reading his remarks (see full text HERE).

Lets take a closer look at a few of the actual comments made by Mitt Romney – which I am most delighted to say, sound to me just like what I heard from Rick Santorum and which made the secular-liberal-left so fighting mad.

How dare Romney echo Santorum’s suggestion that “the centrality of faith” is critical to him and worse, how DARE Mitt Romney refer to the crucial importance of the Judeo Christian tradition to the history of America?

Is Rachel Maddow correct – is Mitt Romney sounding very much like Mitt Romney?  And is that bad?

Yes.  No.  Here goes.

Yes, Mitt Romney has done what this writer has been suggesting for months – echo what both Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and other conservatives have complained about and counter attack the “war on faith” in the United States which is being led by Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney did exactly that this past Saturday at Liberty University’s commencement address.

He followed in doing this, in the steps of President George H.W. Bush who spoke at their 1990 Commencement ceremony and spoke of the importance of faith.

Mitt Romney spoke in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, who spoke at Liberty University in 1980.

And as Rick Santorum has done many times during the past primary campaign, Mitt Romney touched on many of the important issues of the day, while proudly speaking of how faith is a critical ingredient for governing successfully.

That of course, will be called “pandering to the Christians” (or the “base” which is of course, made to sound so very base, so very crass and low) and as you surely know, the liberal-secular-left blogosphere is replete with constant references to Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith, and how dare he not mention that?

How stupid.

I’ve suggested in this column that there is plenty that Mitt Romney believes in common with Christians and he ought to speak of it clearly.  He did this past Saturday.

He emphasized not of the differences between him and Christians as the liberal-left wants to do but of what we have in common, who believe with Rick Santorum, in the centrality of faith.

I was fascinated that in his remarks he actually DID refer to the differences – pointing out that those differences are minor compared to what he believes in common with Christians.  And he was very specific about it as you will see.

The third most important part of his remarks, in my view, is that Mitt Romney did not run away from the gay issue fight which President Obama and Vice President Biden stirred up a few days earlier.  He chose to defend marriage, saying, ” Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.”

No wonder lesbian leftist Rachel Maddow and the liberal-secular left are all so outraged, as will no doubt, their allies here on these pages who are on outpost duty to make sure that the conservatives don’t act too conservative.

The second most significant thing about Mitt Romney’s remarks at Liberty University is that he did not run but advanced forward with Rick Santorum’s defense of faith, saying this repeatedly but especially in this quote,

“Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life.”

Those are, to the liberal-secular left, fighting words that don’t sound like we’d have a President going around the world apologizing for America anymore if Mitt Romney defeats Barack Obama.

And finally we come to my favorite part of his speech, where Mitt Romney clearly answers the S.O.S. call for help from Catholics and other people of faith who are fighting to be free of the enslavement of the HHS “edicts” (their word: mandate) that will force them to carry insurance to help pay for what the Harrisburg Catholic Diocese website called “infanticide services” which defy and contradict their religious teachings.

Said Mitt Romney at Liberty University this past Saturday:

“The protection of religious freedom has also become a matter of debate.  It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with. Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government.”

So in this commencement address at Liberty University, Mitt Romney followed Rick Santorum and most important, followed winning Presidential candidates Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

Mitt Romney spoke of the issues our country faced but he spoke of the shared faith values that unite us and which can produce victory by a united front of conservatives against Barack Obama.

I have excerpted a handful of my favorite paragraphs from the entire remarks (which I do suggest you read in their entirety, HERE), as follows.

**

Excerpts from Saturday 5/12/12

Mitt Romney Commencement address at Liberty University

Moral certainty, clear standards, and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning.

…your values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact, the more you live by your beliefs, the more you will endure the censure of the world. Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable or of the timid. It demands and creates heroic souls like Wesley, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham. Each showed, in their own way, the relentless and powerful influence of the message of Jesus Christ. May that be your guide.

Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life.

The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and, at the foundation, the pre-eminence of the family.

The power of these values is evidenced by a Brookings Institution study that Senator Rick Santorum brought to my attention. For those who graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and marry before they have their first child, the probability that they will be poor is 2 percent. But, if those things are absent, 76 percent will be poor. Culture matters.

As fundamental as these principles are, they may become topics of democratic debate. So it is today with the enduring institution of marriage. Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.

The protection of religious freedom has also become a matter of debate. It strikes me as odd that the free exercise of religious faith is sometimes treated as a problem, something America is stuck with instead of blessed with. Perhaps religious conscience upsets the designs of those who feel that the highest wisdom and authority comes from government.

But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.

Religious freedom opens a door for Americans that is closed to too many others around the world. But whether we walk through that door, and what we do with our lives after we do, is up to us.

…trusting in God and in his purpose for each of us — makes for more than a good sermon. It makes for a good life.

Our worldly successes cannot be guaranteed, but our ability to achieve spiritual success is entirely up to us, thanks to the grace of God. The best advice I know is to give those worldly things your best but never your all, reserving the ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it.

As C.S. Lewis is said to have remarked, “The home is the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose, and that is to support the ultimate career.”

People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology. Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview. The best case for this is always the example of Christian men and women working and witnessing to carry God’s love into every life – people like the late Chuck Colson.

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HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is).  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section. 

The “major” news media still has not seen fit to tell the story of the two white reporters attacked by a black mob in Norfolk, Virginia. Bill O’Reilly is virtually alone among major media in reporting on this, and noting that the Norfolk area “Virginia-Pilot” did not see fit to cover the local story.

Denis Finley said it was merely a “simple assault” and his paper doesn’t cover such, despite the attack taking place on two of their own reporters, who were out of work from injuries for an entire week, which the police classified as “not grave injuries.”

In case you missed the story, two white reporters – Dave Forster and Marjon Rostrami – had been stopped at a red light when their car was attacked by a black teen who threw a rock at the car.

When Forster got out of his stopped car to confront the rock thrower (and presumably stop further damage to his stopped car) the nearby crowd of 100 surrounded him and several started beating him violently.

When the female reporter got out of the car to try to help him she too was attacked. She managed to get a call off to police – after four attempts – and the police came to disperse the crowd.

Several things are noteworthy about this incident. I will address this in the order of what I feel is most significant, and the first, has not been addressed even on the Bill O’Reilly show.

One of the “Die Hard” movies showed what would happen to a white who is on foot in a “bad neighborhood”. Our intrepid hero in that movie was forced to set out on foot in Harlem, a “bad” neighborhood – for whites. It was the major opening scene of the movie.

Did anyone complain that this depiction of what would happen to a white who is on foot in Harlem, provoke any complaints that it was exaggerated? If so I missed it.

It is a sad fact in America today that in many cities you don’t want to be white and on foot in “the bad neighborhoods.”

Is it because you are white and those who will attack you are black? Is it because the people there are poor and they perceive you are rich? Is it a territorial thing, ie. you should have known better than to come into the “wrong neighborhood”?

Is this a joke? Is there anyone in America besides The Virginia Pilot’s Denis Finley who says what happened to the reporter is not a hate crime, and who thinks there’s nothing noteworthy about this, nothing worth their reporting on?

In fact, if this is not noteworthy, if this is not worthy of a news story in the Norfolk newspaper or in any national media (except for The Blaze online and Bill O’Reilly on Fox TV) then it proves my first point.

Of course, there’s nothing unusual about this story because everybody knows if you are white and you get out of your car in an inner city, high crime, black neighborhood, you will do well to escape with your life, and you will very likely be beaten and robbed very shortly.

It is nice to see that the police, after a few weeks of news silence on this story, did finally arrest a 16 year old for this crime – and he is now an accused felon.

And, since the outcry generated from Bill O’Reilly’s Fox news report, the editor has at least attempted to make excuses. Finley wrote that he had (at last) discovered that “race has entered the equation.” You think?

And, the solicitous Finley also wrote that he’d not reported on the story earlier because his two suddenly bashful reporters did not want their names in the news. One wonders if he is usually this solicitous with other crime victims?

My further conclusions from this story, aside from the fact that everybody KNOWS it is dangerous to be white and on foot in an inner city in America, and everybody knows you aren’t supposed to say or write this, follows.

First, and most fundamental, is that it is only marginally LESS safe to be a black stranger, dressed upscale, and appearing to NOT BELONG to that neighborhood, and be on foot in a black neighborhood. Black on black crime, like the Rodney King riots of many years ago, is the under reported news in America’s inner cities.

The biggest victims of black criminals are blacks who live in their inner city territory. Not the rare white who happens to have made the mistake of being on foot, or stopped at a traffic light, in such a “territory.”

Second. Bill O’Reilly makes the point that Denis Finley denies: if this were a story in Norfolk, Virginia (or any other city in America) of a gang of whites attacking a nice, young couple who happened to have been stopped at a traffic light, we’d have been seeing 24/7 news coverage of this on al the network news channels, radio stations and newspapers in America, for the last few weeks.

Far LESS of a racial motivation has been shown in the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, but the intensity of the media coverage has been incredible.

Third. There is an underdone to this story, if you read between the lines, that the white couple were stupid to have driven their car in that neighborhood, deserved what happened to them. And that they were extra stupid to have got out of their car.

This “blame the victim” mentality of course, completely excuses the criminal. Of course it is true – if they hadn’t been in that neighborhood, and just drove off (including RUN THE RED LIGHT, ESCAPE!!!!), they would not have been hurt. But this “blame the victim” thing is pretty awful, in my view.

Fourth. The liberal media operates on a double standard. Of course they are not going to cover a story like this. Liberals HATE stories like this because they think it plays into the hands of conservatives who are all male racists (according to them).

A story like this would seem to justify their bad behavior so it should not be covered at all.

Fifth. There is a paternalistic mentality at work here on the part of the liberal media. They think you should not hold black criminals to the same standards as criminal whites. They will excuse behavior of blacks, which they would never excuse for whites, because they actually think blacks are stupid, inferior.

They are pathetically racist with this mentality.

Sixth. Many who read this may be shocked but, there is actually a mentality among the liberal-left that says the crimes of whites against blacks – starting with the crime of slavery – is the reason that blacks have a lesser standard of living in the United States, and that only reparations paid by whites to compensate for the several generations of “criminal conduct” against them, will balance this equation.

This is not the mentality of socialist “spread the wealth around” which we have seen and heard from Barack Obama and other leftists. This is reparations for “crimes” by whites against blacks.

Of course this is silly.

Why would a black who came here from Jamaica or from Nigeria three years ago, need “reparations” to pay for what happened to a black slave over 100 years ago?

Why would an Asian Indian or a Russian who drives a taxi in New York City since they arrived in America five years ago, be required to “pay” for the supposed crimes of whites over 100 years ago?

Why would the descendants of people whose “gave the last full measure of devotion” on the battlefield to end slavery, as commemorated in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, be required to pay reparations?

Why would the side that won a victory at Gettysburg for the idea that you do not have to pay for the crimes of your parents nor have a title or other “tradition” bestowed on you based upon the accident of your birth, now be told that they must pay “reparations” for the supposed sins of their great grandparents?

How did we get to this point in America where an attack like this is covered up instead of reported for what it is – an indication that there is a problem with the criminal justice system in America, especially in our cities, and that there are too many underage inner city troublemakers roaming about without jobs, without hope, but with plenty of bitterness and rage?

How did we get to the point in America that in most cities, everybody seems to think a crime like this is not a wake up call for us to take action but a sign that two white people were in the wrong place and at the wrong time?

Seventh. The argument was actually offered on camera by someone from the neighborhood to Bill O’Reilly’s producer, that the attack by a black mob on two whites was to get even for the death of black Trayvon Martin in Florida.

This is ridiculous on several levels. First, two wrongs don’t make a right. Second, the facts of the two cases are totally different and in Florida are in dispute but there is no disputing that the two white reporters did not attack the black gang. Third, and most important: there were loud and repeated demands that the white be arrested during 24/7 news coverage of the Trayvon Martin case. There has been a media blackout of the Norfolk, Virginia incident.

Eighth. Finally irony about the story. The girl is from Iran. If a group of whites had attacked her, would that have generated a media firestorm? Would we have seen an outpouring of “Muslim immigrant attacked by American mob” or “Female Iranian Immigrant assaulted by The Ugly Americans” for 24/7? Would we have seen repeated demands that the criminals who assaulted her should be found and arrested?

What happened to Dave Forster and Marjon Rostrami is wrong. Skin color should not enter into this topic except to note that it was clearly a motivation on the part of their attackers.

It is wrong, and we should be asking the question about American cities which Dr. Edward Banfield wrote about in The Unheavenly City (1970) – liberal solutions add to the decay, boost the frustration and bitterness, skyrocket the crime rate and solve nothing.

Banfield was not any kind of a “movement conservative” but if you accept the premise that sometimes, we ought to look at issues from a “right and wrong” perspective, then he offers a lot of reasons why liberalism in American cities doesn’t ever work, and why conservative ideas (such as the enterprise zones his book helped motivate/inspire) should be tried instead.

If you keep boosting taxes in American cities and driving off business and the middle class you end up with an ever increasing number of gangs roaming about, looking for some hapless person to stop at a red light where they can throw a rock or do worse.

Liberals have had virtual monopoly control of most of America’s cities for several generations and the ugly truth is, their ideas don’t work, but make it worse, to the point it is now very dangerous in the cities they control. It isn’t hard to see why there is so much “flight” to the suburbs from the cities of America.

The question isn’t what happened in Norfolk on May 1 to two white reporters. Nor is it, what motivated a gang of troublemakers, nor even why is it liberal media covers up stories like this?

Rather, the question is, what is happening to America’s cities, and what can we do to reverse the trend that makes it dangerous to stop at a red light in the wrong neighborhood in so many cities in America?

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This concludes my third month (12 weeks) writing here at RED STATE 5x a week (on weekdays) where I have offered 130,171 words in 58 articles, averaging 2,224 words each.

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HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania. I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is). And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section.

“We’ve been deluged by hundreds of pathetic posts defending Rick Santorum’s “conservatism.  Thankfully his campaign has been suspended and don’t have to read that stupid crap anymore.  There is talk of “Santorum ’16″ but after today that claptrap will hopefully die a metaphorically violent death.”

Besides such a juvenile ranting as what I quoted above, this particular “gem” also contained more trash which I will not cite here.

Clearly there will  be no letup in the whining, insults and bellyaching even after Rick Santorum suspended his campaign.  Any statement he makes, any appearance in the news, generates a cacophony of more load moans, whining, complaints and what sounds like eerie nail scratching on a chalkboard.

The “writer” (ranter would be more accurate) employed constant use of such “persuasive” language – little more than juvenile catcalls – to describe their opinion of our conservative candidate such as “stupid crap” and “claptrap.”

Nope, I have bad news for the children who talk/write like that: Rick Santorum and those who supported him are not going to “die a metaphorically violent death.”

The above quote and lead in is not a description of the rhetoric directed at us RED STATERS and us conservatives/Christians from Daily Kos, Media Matters, Huff Post or any of the other liberal left, secular-left, anti-Christian hate sites funded in many instances by George Soros.

This shocking anti-conservative diatribe or rant was lifted from a recent column right here at RED STATE.

The book I like to read suggests you can tell the tree by the fruit – and if that doesn’t sound like leftwing trash then you haven’t been visiting leftwing websites or else you have, and you are lying about it.

I know that during the recent GOP primary we’ve seen a lot of pretty strong rhetoric directed at each of the candidates, particularly as each had a brief turn as the “flavor of the week”.

If you listened to some of this stuff and took it too seriously, NO ONE who was offered as a candidate, has any chance of defeating Barack Obama, and NO ONE running at any time, was any different from Barack Obama.

They are all bad, they are all the same, they all have fatal flaws, and they all have no chance.

And those “telling” us this were of course, mostly on the left, the pretend “fair and balanced” news media and by a few from within our own ranks, who were (are) either over zealous, over worked up, took too many energy drinks or caffeine, or who are liberals posing as conservatives.

I just cited what is surely considered a clever “argument” right here on Red State just a few days ago by someone claiming to be a conservative (as one would suppose, writing here), who simply detests Rick Santorum and it would appear, any of us who dissent from their “sure sounds like a hard core leftist to me” rhetoric.

In the case of the offering I cite above, the supposed excuse to launch a fresh new round of trashing of Rick Santorum was the supposition that the one true conservative (is anyone else besides me tired of all the politicians making this claim – except Richard Lugar – whose honesty is a rare trait in a politician, ie. I had never heard of him claiming this mantle) in the race for a Senate seat in Nebraska was the one that Santorum did NOT endorse.

(I want to be clear: in a contest between Rick Santorum and Erick Erickson’s endorsement for a candidate, while I would listen respectfully to the rationale of both, my advance-inclination would be to follow the Erickson recommendation – but without any urge to insult Rick Santorum. In the case of the Nebraska US Senate race I offer no opinion except the aforementioned.)

Geez folks.  Do we still have to listen to this sort of personal insult and caterwauling?  Can’t we just dissent from the Santorum endorsement in Nebraska without using it as an excuse for a fresh new round of junk?

Isn’t it about time to give it a rest?  Mercy.

Such rhetoric will not persuade either Rick Santorum or a single one of his followers to stop or depart the political process, and only serves as an irritant, and something which will drive people away from any party making such unbecoming howling and pathetic whining.

Next I suppose we’ll be seeing a series of articles about poor lovestruck Ann Coulter who thinks the Governor of New Jersey should have been the GOP nominee for President, and more recently that he should be VP?

After all, most conservatives I know think that Governor Chris Christie is too liberal for them, despite some fascinating riposte on his part over the past year.

So therefore should we entertain a motion that Ann Coulter is a liberal, she stinks, we should burn all of her books, we should spit when we hear her name, perhaps burn her in effigy?

Can’t we simply dissent from something that one of our advocates says and with which we disagree, without claiming that they are now evil incarnate and should be driven out of politics and that they should  now “die a metaphorically violent death” as a result of your (or our) disagreement with something they said or did?

Enough of the juvenile name calling and childish temper tantrums.

A typical rotten-tomato throw is the epithet “neo-con” hurled at conservatives, usually as a dead giveaway that the accuser is a fan of Ron Paul.  I’ve yet to see any sensible definition of what the term means to the accuser – only that in context it must be a very bad thing to be accused of that.

Am I wrong?

Have you ever read an explanation as to why we old time Reaganites ought to have kicked original neo-cons Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Senator Henry Scoop Jackson out of the ranks of cold-war allies to our President fighting to defend America against a “clear and present danger” to our existence?

Have you ever yet read an explanation as to why movement conservatives who in the past had allied from time to time with liberals on national defense issues, should all be thrown overboard as wicked, evil, nasty “neo-cons”?

It truly reveals far more about the person who hurls around such juvenile attempts to smear conservatives than it does about the person or group they have targeted.

Red State regulars have seen some of that sort of frantic rhetoric directed at former Governor Sarah Palin from people who claim to be “good conservatives” and our fellow RED STATERS who seem to always get very exorcised at the mere mention of her name, let alone any of us suggesting that there are many things to admire and appreciate about the former Alaska Governor and GOP VP nominee.

Again, the howling and whining about Sarah Palin have not deterred the lady from building a twitter and Facebook following larger than all the candidates who ran for the GOP nomination this past year, combined.

Truly, Rick Santorum and his followers may be emboldened by the insults to follow Sarah Palin’s example: success is the best revenge and he who builds our cause larger, has the last laugh.

But no.  The Sarah Palin critics – mostly on the left but a few water carriers within our ranks – love to trot out anything the lady ever did wrong or was ever accused of and once again, the frantic rhetoric would sound like it had been lifted right off the pages of Daily Kos (et. al.) diatribe or from a Rachel Maddow broadcast.  And you can count on this anytime she has been in the news.

The article in question which I take the floor to criticize today was posted a few days ago as a new “trashing” of Rick Santorum, and was given extra long life by its placement in the “Recommended” section.

The article contained not one new thing or news item but simply used the excuse of Santorum endorsing the “wrong” candidate in a GOP primary (a ‘fact” disputed by others in the comment thread that followed), to regurgitate all of the leftist, anti-Christian, anti-conservative accusations against Santorum plus a variety of the talking points from the Ron Paul for President campaign.

I wish to register my polite demur to such extension of life for a RED STATE offering which should have been allowed to die a nice quiet death, albeit the half dozen or so who can be reliably counted on to cheer loudly (Bronx cheer?) any attack on Christian/values voters would seem to preclude a totally silent sinking beneath the cesspool waters where such trash belongs.

And yes I did say the rather unChristian characterization of the article as trash, which does not do credit to Red State to have been placed in the “recommended” status.

It is not exactly clever, to simply throw around such trash talk and hang your hat on a rationale for this fresh new round of attack on Rick Santorum, that he endorsed the “wrong” candidate in a primary.

We know that for the rest of their lives, anything that Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich do, will cause a veritable eruption of trash and refuse coming at them from every leftwing 2nd floor window in America.

But are we really going to have to listen to this silliness here on these pages also?  May I appeal to the editors to please consider allowing such vicious, personal and fact-devoid attacks on people who have earned a following among our ranks of dedicated conservatives (such as Rick Santorum) to die a natural death by leaving them ignored in the future, instead of giving them extra life?

I don’t mind in the slightest that we conservatives do not always agree.  In addition to the “three legs” of the conservative cause we also have differences based on personal preferences, and we are also sometimes influenced by someone we admire, endorsing a particular candidate (though I wonder: did Ann Coulter ever convince anyone for Chris Christie, after all those articles & appearances on Sean Hannity’s show?).

I do not think it is an appropriate way to build fellowship and community, to build our army larger, by such trash talk as the article I read and here write to object to.

It isn’t a matter of whether you Dear Reader, agree with my support of Rick Santorum, or if you were for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

Clearly the majority of movement-oriented conservatives, which does include (despite their hatred of them) the leaders of the values-voter crowd, once known as the Christian right, were for NOT ROMNEY whether they were for Perry, Santorum, Gingrich, Palin, Cain, Bachmann.

The issue I raise here, is my belief that we “sin by silence” but should instead object, when someone is so rude as to insult and hurl such juvenile rantings in our midst to any of these candidates and those who supported any of them during the primary.

In summary, and knowing that a half dozen (at most) irate, anti-values voter activists here will sound off and if this offering receives some “Facebook likes” will pounce with a fresh round of insults, strawman arguments, trash-talk, ad hominum attacks, etc.

Nonetheless, we soldier on with this proposition:

For our cause to prosper, a modicum of mutual respect and affection by those who accept certain fundamentals about our cause and why we are alarmed about the prospects of our socialist adversaries, is in order.

Barack Obama is a socialist (or a very good pretender) who appointed two of the most far-left members of the U.S. Supreme Court, has staffed his administration with the most far-left activists he could find, and has filled our radio, TV, newspaper and internet spaces with the most far-left socialist rhetoric that any of us have heard in our lifetime.

Those of us who recognize the danger of an even more unrestrained “flexible” second term, should and must recognize that in spite of any differences we may have, our highest priority should be to focus our limited firepower to the front, and not into our own flanks.

Those shooting wounded conservatives on the battlefield, with special focus on the ones who are Christian, ought to be given a rather loud and cheerful raspberry.  For the battle still rages, and the enemy is there, to the far-left, they still outnumber us, and we have precious little ammunition to waste shooting our own.

As for the future of Rick Santorum and those for whom he spoke, I have especially bad news for those who ape the rhetoric of the far left here on the pages of Red State.

You won’t be rid of Rick Santorum or his folks because they will, with or without Mitt Romney’s encouragement, regardless of whether the Romney management follows your advise and attempts to emulate Gerald Ford’s failed attempt to marginalize Ronald Reagan and his followers in 1976, carry on.

They have the issues, the larger mailing lists, a larger following and determination to carry on, and the sick-sounding criticism of the far-left and you who ally with them in assaulting “values voters” here at Red State, will avail you naught.

The idea of right and wrong is not about to be banished as an idea ripe for political discussion.

Those who believe the American founding fathers had it right when they were inspired by their Christian beliefs to found this Republic, grow stronger even as your insults and desperate, juvenile attacks, persist.

Those who believe with Rick Santorum that the John F. Kennedy of 1960 and you are wrong to attempt to banish Christians and their ideas from the political process will lose.

Those of us who believe with Rick Santorum that the “centrality of faith” in our life is a key both to happy living here and to eternal salvation, will continue, and indeed be strengthened by the desperate attacks on our core beliefs and on those who champion our cause.

We will be emboldened and encouraged by the desperate, childish attacks and in the end, we will have the last laugh.  “If not here” (and we believe it will be here), “then in eternity.”

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HanoverHenry of RED STATE is Pat Henry on Facebook, and I’m on the lookout for new friends there. You can also communicate via private mail at Facebook, and I welcome new sources for my articles focusing on the conservative-Christian viewpoint in Pennsylvania.  I appreciate your sharing this article elsewhere and only ask that you include this “disclaimer” in any reprints or sharing you do (if this is reprinted on any other website, that is).  And I thank those whose information have helped me with some of my reports, including those who do not wish to be quoted by name.

Links to articles I wrote at RED STATE at my Facebook Notes section.