Dakota Beacon

Learning to be Grandpa is like reviving old tricks with an old dog. Fortunately for the grandkids, my tricks are easy to learn. They are tailored for an age group on both ends of the spectrum.

Then a segue in time and topic sneaks up almost unnoticed. The first grandkid graduates from high school. Then another. Wait a minute! Weren’t we just playing with toys in the back yard? Unbelievable! I could say something trite like, “My, how time flies.” But what’s the use? I am slowly being surrounded by young adults I once knew as kids.

“Grandpa, what was it like when you were…?” the grandkids ask. And we drift off into a bit of reverie as I reminisce. They’re amazed at my tales! I’m amazed at my memory! Happily, this Grandpa has found another niche.

Only Grandpas can be Grandpas, and a wise Grandpa will find his niche whatever his age.

I’ve often wondered over the years if Cleo Nordquist realized the impact she had on me (and many of her other students in her fifth and sixth grade classes) with her tireless work as an American Legion Auxiliary member during the annual poppy drive and poster contest.

Through her commitment to the memory of those who served in WWI, WWII, and Korea, she taught me the significance and importance of acts of commemoration in the service of memory.  

Let’s face it. We humans have short memories that need reminding.

It is no secret that technology changes rapidly. When changes occur, who is helping to develop the new tech? In this article, Dr. Jan Dudt examines the swift rise of artificial intelligence and writes, “It is reasonable to ask questions concerning where AI can go. Major players in the field, typically non-Christians, cast a troubling mission for the technology. Christians need to beware.”

Things take time. They do not happen overnight. I speak of the gradual decay within higher education. Rankness in academia began long ago and progresses year by year.

Consider the following tiny, but typical, group of like-minded professors. Generation X, Millennials, and continuing through the NextGen generation might be too young and naive to perceive what Baby Boomers understand intuitively. Consequently, they would have little basis for recognizing tenured radical professors for who they really are. Instead, they probably view the contemporary university environment as “normal” and their professors as speaking “truth.”

Comparing the behavior of some political candidates and members of the North Dakota media to mockingbirds.

Show trials are orchestrated for political purposes, often resulting in predetermined guilty verdicts and severe punishments. They serve as tools of propaganda, intimidation, and control.

Thank goodness in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” where the US Constitution rules, and the Rule of Law prevails nothing like a politically driven show trial could possibly occur!

Last month, Congress passed a bipartisan bill that gave a Chinese business, ByteDance, an ultimatum: Sell the popular app TikTok or it will be banned in the U.S. President Joe Biden signed the bill on April 24. Will this action stop the Chinese Communist Party from gaining personal information about Americans? Or is there more to be done? In this article, Dr. Brian Dellinger examines the issue and writes, “Any fix, however, must begin somewhere — and as first steps go, an app explicitly beholden to hostile foreign powers seems a good place to begin.”

The liberal left progressively uses mobs for leverage. Interestingly, there is no equivalent tool on the right. When was the last time the media gave scrupulous attention to tens of thousands of white supremacists rioting, looting, and burning in cities? Mayhem of 2020 incited by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa were duplicitously classified by some media as “peaceful demonstrations.”

What we recently saw on university campuses were not revolutionaries in action. We saw tantrum-throwing, angry adult children of middle-class and upper middle-class “boomers” still living off their parents. They were poorly educated but well indoctrinated to hate America as persuaded by the likes of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, George Soros, and an abundance of academics.

Words matter. When you are a mischievous ten-year-old you discover that when your father says “no” he means it.  Why? Because he said so. How did I know he meant it? The black leather strap. When he spoke about other things and gave people his word on something and they shook hands on it, I would have been more than willing to let the other party in on what those hands of my dad’s (that looked to me like Paul Bunyan’s hands) could do!

What are our responsibilities to the future and more distant generations? Are we doing enough for them? In this article, Dr. Gary Welton examines how our current decisions impact those of future generations. He writes, “Without a doubt, the most serious way in which we are not protecting our descendants is with regard to financial irresponsibility. Our national debt is approaching 35 trillion dollars, representing a personal debt of $105,000 for every individual (adult, teen, child, toddler, and newborn) living in America.”

Election reform cannot happen in a one-party system. Oligarchs and plutocrats will not tolerate their own removal from power. Without reform elections become meaningless.

President Ronald Reagan warned, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction... It must be fought for, protected, and handed on… to our children…or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children…what it was once like in the United States where people were free.”

We must salvage both the “knowledgeable” and those that “know so much that is not so” toward individually building for the future and collectively paying off the debt we are leaving to our heirs; not through higher taxes… but through fully private development of our national potential…where government returns to its “punishment only” role, as envisioned by our founders and proven by our history. Only then will private “Society” return to its rightful role as “benefactor” of those in dire straights through no fault of their own. As we look around us, is it not obvious, however, that most of the problems individuals are experiencing at this time in history, are due to their own life choices?

Most recently, I sat down and watched the debate between the Republican candidates for U.S. Congress. I was not disappointed. I thought they handled the questions well. For all their differences, they seemed to follow a standard Republican position on most issues, albeit conservative might be pushing it in a few places.

This primary season in North Dakota will go a long way to begin defining who the Republican Party will for the foreseeable future. Stay tuned, June 11 is right around the corner.

Friday, April 12, 2024, The Washington Times reported the following, “The House voted Friday to renew the government’s most important spying tool without any major change, giving the country’s intelligence community the powers it wanted.

Lawmakers shot down an attempt to add a new warrant requirement before the FBI can scour the data looking for American citizens’ identities, with a majority of the House agreeing with intelligence officials that it would be too dangerous to make the government have to take that step.”

Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment? “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

A myriad of additional human reproductive issues have not been included in this questionnaire.

Are you beginning to understand why “Abortion” is rightly a state issue? …Even if a particularly evil state decided to make it an individual issue by allowing all abortions with no exceptions.

If we could be assured that every individual was morally perfect (i.e. if this was Heaven on Earth) we would have no need for laws in general, much less laws concerning human reproduction. And Karl Marx (the Atheist-Communist) would have been “pleased as punch.” And next time you hear a federal office-holder continuously spewing opinions on abortion, know it is worthless drivel. $34.5 Trillion National Debt!

Consider a bit of history. Some readers are old enough to remember the following. In 1992 Ross Perot (Reform Party, TX) threw his hat in the presidential campaign running against incumbent President George Bush (R) and newcomer William Jefferson Clinton (D). Perot effectively siphoned votes from Bush and we ended up with Clinton.

Four years earlier, at the 1988 Republican Presidential Convention, George Bush gave his famous pledge – “Read my lips. No new taxes.” In 1990 he reneged on his pledge earning him the anger and distrust of the American voter. As a perfect product of “the swamp” he deserved the public’s ire.

Be careful how you vote.

Whether we’re talking politics, economics OR religion, there are plenty of challenges to the American way of life as we’ve known it. For most of our relatively short tenure as a country, we’ve met the challenges with a smile and a commitment to roll-up our sleeves and work harder.

We’ve survived two world wars, the sting and a stigma of Vietnam, the Middle East crisis. And we haven’t merely survived, in some of the afore mentioned categories, we’ve actually thrived—because of our history and because of our people. All of them—the whole motley melting pot!

In 1998, the United States Senate unanimously passed a resolution establishing April 6 as “Tartan Day” in recognition of the enormous contributions of the people and leaders of Scotland throughout its history, to the American Revolution, our Constitution and, of course, the settling of America.  Many of our presidents and other significant leaders have had Scottish ancestry but even more importantly, our freedoms have ancestry in those set forth by the Scottish nobles, clergy and barons who signed the document that came to be known as the Declaration of Arbroath.  In March I had the privilege of presenting a brief lecture on this topic at the Fargo-Moorhead Celtic Festival, and many were surprised at the close ties which bind the Scottish experience to that of our own in America.  It occurred to me that perhaps an explanation of Tartan Day and its significance to America might be long overdue.  Therefore, I thought that I would post, with minor adjustments, my comments from the event in Moorhead last month.

Biden’s open border policy (yes, policy) no longer turns heads. As a scheme implemented immediately upon taking office, Biden continues to welcome millions of unknowns into what once was our nation, the United States of America. So, who lives among us? Newcomers arrive with vastly different standards, values, and mores. Assimilation long ago became a moot point.

Our dominant media leave the impression that illegal entrants constitute the poor and underprivileged from strife torn countries in our hemisphere. Not so. Open borders attract illegals from most of the countries around the world.

Criminal elements coming across the US southern border conjure images of tattooed MS-13 gang members, sex traffickers, and drug smugglers. These criminals make the headlines as they should. But many of us will never encounter these people or their crimes.

Many Americans, however, will more likely encounter low level criminal activity. The following offers one great example.

Plenty of people have tried to wrap words around the concept of power; but nothing is as significant as personal experience. Sunday is the Christian holiday of Easter. We celebrate it with stuffed bunnies and egg hunts. We might even have a few thoughts about the death of a man who lived just over 2,000 years ago.

But as we look into the timing and circumstances surrounding his death, we discover something. This was an event that was all about power.

Get “saved” and know you are going to heaven. That was my earliest impression of what it meant to receive Jesus Christ. Of course, that truth remains self-evident. But then what do you do between the time you accept Christ as Lord and Savior and the time you die -- or He returns? Do we impose our own set of rules trying to be “good Christians” in our own strength and risk reimposing a form of law? That would be a reversion back to the Law itself from which Christians were delivered. Either way God’s people never could keep the Law. We could also join the “white knuckle club” and hang on for dear life until we die. Is that what Christ’s death and resurrection was all about? Surely there must be more to this Christ thing than simply joining a religious club, going to church and Bible study a few times a week, and hoping for the best. In fact, there may be something else at play.

The past few weeks have been a textbook case of gaslighting the public.  At the moment I am referring to the absurd lies being promulgated by the British Press, handed to them by the Royal Family from their fantasy factory behind the gates of “The Palace”. 

You may think that one of the longest words in the English language would represent something of some or even great importance; you would be wrong. The meaning of the single word title is “the act of estimating that something is worthless.” Outer space (the space itself; not the trillions of astronomical objects that sparsely populate it), being devoid of anything at all, is probably what comes to mind when estimating worthlessness. Cryptocurrency should represent a close second.

A headline caught my eye from The Agenda (a publication from The Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank). “Failing Grade: US Drops to 25th Place in Index of Economic Freedom.” That headline reported the release of Heritage’s 2024 INDEX OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM.

A related and equally troubling headline stated, “2024 Index of Economic Freedom: World Economic Freedom Reaches a 23-Year Low; U.S. Economic Freedom Continues to Diminish.”

A Camden coach ran over and tapped one of the exiting officials, Kevin Torres, on the shoulder, and “a group of Camden coaches pleaded for the referees to meet,” reported NJ.com. The refs then consulted for a short time — and overturned the call. Incredulity among sober observers was the result.

Then there was a secondary result: accusations of anti-white bias.

You see, Camden appears an entirely black team, while Manasquan appears entirely white.

There’s an old song that runs through my heard every time every time I read something circulating through the newspapers or on social media these days.

Especially something like I read about a young man taking a conservative position on social issues in ND.  The song goes something like this: “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything...” I’m referring to State Representative Brandon Prichard Republican from District 8.  

He has been an outspoken critic of establishment Republicans calling on them to adhere to the principles laid out in the party platform.   While I am not in agreement on a 100% of his statements, but then who is with all politicians. I happen to know the young man under scrutiny. He serves in the legislature.

Irish culture recognizes more than shamrocks, leprechauns, and green beer. Music, literature, textiles and, more recently, technological products from Ireland’s burgeoning industry flow from the Emerald Isle.

A small but pleasant Irish gift comes in the form of a poetic format enjoyed by generations of people. Enter the limerick. This rhyme style took its name from Ireland’s county and town -- Limerick. Here is a classic example of a limerick penned by American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Perfection is not a prerequisite for praise. A father will proudly tout his son’s accomplishments without mentioning the boy’s occasional mischievousness. Likewise, talking about our country’s successes doesn’t necessitate disclaimers about her sins.

Stop saying, “We all know our country is not perfect.” It’s not a sign of virtue. It’s a marker of leftist victory

Speeding headlong toward campaign season brings citizens face-to-face with the prevalence of “fake news.” Many media types and internet gurus desire to sway an election.

What is fake news and what are fake news sites? Conventional wisdom holds that TV and traditional print journalism moved to the left long ago and do not reflect a conservative point of view. For the sake of brevity, focus on the internet and social media.

Would you consider getting involved?  

That’s one of my goals as I write to the naturally grounded conservatives of ND.  To dial back to defining and engaging the components of conservatism as the grassroots—those “people of inland America” as Walt Whitman referred to us, to show themselves for who they are once again.