Dakota Beacon

As we begin 2018, there are sure to be major political stories in America this year: spending bill battles, midterm elections, foreign policy debates, special congressional elections, the economy and many more. To help set the stage for 2018, Dr. Gary Welton looks back 50 years to 1968—arguably one of the most interesting campaign seasons in recent American history. Welton details what a fascinating (and at times very tragic) year it was for America in 1968.

It is, of course, impossible for anyone to invent a single saying worthy of Jesus. Much easier to coin a phrase worthy of a human genius like Shakespeare! “Heaven and earth shall pass away,” Jesus said, “but my words shall not pass away.” Once we have heard those words, they become part of us. They seem so familiar that we may think they are trite, but they are not. They are eternally new, even when we have heard them all our lives, and they always reward meditation on them.

In the modern world quite often when a person becomes a Christian they inevitably question the ephemeral culture surrounding them. Christians, by their very nature, have at times been regarded as a threat to the authority of the state. Some people unfortunately still hold that view.

No totalitarian state can tolerate people who hold absolute standards by which to judge that state and its behavior. In Roman times, as in our own, Christians held a standard by which to judge morals and the state. As such, Roman Christians were regarded as enemies of the state and of Caesar, god of the empire. The emperor as god merely constituted amplified humanity. When Roman society collapsed, their god went with it. During the chaos of decline, people eventually accepted authoritarian government. Christians, however, were not caught in the flux of the relativistic world.

Rome’s Christians had answers -- answers to ultimate questions all people ask at one time or another. Why am I here? What happens when I die? Christians could face persecution because they had the strength of a personal, eternal God who had spoken truth to them. It was their faith that granted them the strength to face horrible death in the Roman arena. Throughout the centuries their strength could not be overcome despite their persecution. Not only did Christianity survive, it grew and spanned cultures, peoples, and millennia.

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At its monthly meeting on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is set to vote to repeal a 2015 regulation that has become known as net neutrality. What are these Obama-era internet regulations? And is repealing them good or bad for American citizens? In this article, Dr. Brian Dellinger details the 2015 regulations and why repealing them may be the way to go. He writes, “Whatever one’s feelings on net neutrality, the 2015 rules should be seen for what they are: a staggering expansion of bureaucratic power, by decree of the bureaucracy itself.”

Our unofficial motto, once E pluribus unum, has beome E pluribus plura — out of many, many more. This is why we fight over everything, from life’s origin to politics to football to baking cakes to marriage to, even, what boys and girls are. It’s why everything ends up in court.

As for the end game, people with badly conflicting values trying to co-exist under the same roof will eventually go their separate ways — unless, as with bickering children, an iron hand keeps them in line. The large groups of people known as countries are no different. Unless something radically alters our cultural trajectory, as a nuclear blast might alter an asteroid’s, our fate is either dissolution or despotism.

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Should employees who chose not to join a public sector union be forced to pay the equivalent of dues to the union? Especially when the collective bargaining positions of the union are antithetical to their own political and ideological beliefs? In this article, Dr. John Sparks examines the case of Janus v. AFSCME—a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court next term—and points out that “fair share” regimes of public sector unions may be unconstitutional.

Our forefathers understood something we seldom see clearly today. Government of free people must begin with self-control. To govern oneself internally is the prerequisite of free people living in a republic. If people cannot govern themselves internally, then all the external forms of government in the world will not be effective in a democracy. In America’s great experiment with democracy, morals matter and character counts.

If my generation has a low aptitude for moral behavior, then there is always the next generation. The younger generation may find that morality tends to provide some structure to an otherwise chaotic life.

The columnist Michelle Malkin writes, “We are under attack by Secularist Grinches Gone Wild.” Pat Buchanan goes so far as to speak of “hate crimes” against Christians.

I disagree. In some parts of the world, from Sudan to China, Christians really are being persecuted, even murdered. But what is going on in America’s symbolic opposition to Christianity is something different.

Sometimes I think the anti-Christian forces take Christ more seriously than most nominal Christians do. The Western world, including many of those who consider themselves Christians, has turned Christmas into a bland holiday of mere niceness. If you don’t get into the spirit, you’re likely to be called a Scrooge.

The natural reaction to Christ is to reject him. He said so. In fact, when he was taken to the Temple as an infant, St. Simeon prophesied that he would be a center of contention. Later he predicted his own death and told his followers they must expect persecution too.

“[A]t the near-genius level (an IQ of 145), brilliant men outnumber brilliant women by 8 to one,” wrote Professor Richard Lynn in 2010. Of course, the ratio varies depending on what data you use, but the pattern is unmistakable, consistent and finds no disagreement among experts: As you move up the I.Q. scale, the ratio becomes more skewed in men’s favor until (according to the study here) the category “I.Q. over 176,” where there is no ratio — because no woman scored that high.

Why this disparity? I’d theorize that it’s for the same reason why males are more likely to develop X-linked chromosomal abnormalities (such as color-blindness or hemophilia): because, put simply, the Y (male) chromosome increases the chances of anomalies’ emergence. And, well, genius is an anomaly.

Of course, this phenomenon would apply to other abilities as well, whether in music, art, athletics, cooking, chess, writing or, well, most anything else under the sun.

This is why virtually all history’s inventors and innovators have been men. It’s why, barring some bizarre, nature-rending genetic engineering (which would also be birthed by men), they always will be. 

Tumult and turbulence roil the otherwise serene political landscape.

Not! Sex scandals are hardly new in the political realm and America has seen her fair share over the past few decades.

Earlier this week, CVS announced that it was buying Aetna for around $69 billion. The deal between the drugstore giant and health insurance provider could have major implications on America’s the healthcare industry. In this article, Richard D. Kocur looks at the deal and suggests it could “signal a new approach to delivering access to affordable healthcare.”

Police pull out the excuse that they are conditioned to fear people, but people are becoming conditioned to fear police.  Could be that we are brewing up a lot more trouble than a few court cases.

We have been groaning through a season of exposees of powerful men abusing women (and boys).

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It has been one year since Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died at the age of 90. Since seizing Cuba in January 1959, Castro was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. In this article that first appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Dr. Paul Kengor urges the world to remember Castro for what he achieved the most: tyranny, repression, and death.

Much has been said about the acquittal of felonious invader Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the killer of young Kate Steinle, who died in her father’s arms. Yet while most of the focus has been on “sanctuary cities” — a euphemism for treasonous, lawless cities — there perhaps has been no scrutiny of the people whose minds are too often a sanctuary from knowledge and reality: modern jurors. 

I once wrote a piece titled “Why Most Voters Shouldn’t Vote,” and a corresponding principle may be that most jurors shouldn’t sit on juries. People so apathetic that they couldn’t be bothered to try and determine reality on high profile candidates or cases probably won’t transform, magically, into sagacious sleuths of reality upon entering a ballot or jury box. Apathy is not an asset, and ignorance is not a virtue. 

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Few witnesses could be more damning against a purported sexual abuser of four decades ago than an ex-cop from that era. That is, unless the ex-cop has a hidden agenda. Like the former Gadsden, Alabama cop who claims police were told in the 1970s to ensure that now-GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore stayed away from teen cheerleaders — and who actually turns out to be a left-wing Moore opponent

The Alabama Senate race could determine whether Roe v. Wade is overturned. The lives of millions of unborn may be the stakes.

Today, the GOP, holding Congress and the White House, has a narrow path to capture the Third Branch, the Supreme Court, and to dominate the federal courts for a decade.

Thus have the skids been greased for a conservative recapture of the federal judiciary unseen since the early days of FDR.

No president in decades has seen the opportunity Trump has to remake the federal judiciary.

Both Trump, by whom he nominates, and a Republican Senate, with its power to confirm with 51 votes, are indispensable if we are to end judicial dictatorship in America.

Despite the results of over a half century of systematic erosion of ethics, morality, and decency within our country, a long overdue and accelerating rise of revelations of past sexual transgressions are currently minimizing, if not destroying, significant elements of the “elite establishment” power structure of the United States of America. The political party that implemented the genocide of native peoples, supported slavery, white supremacy, segregation and finally the “Great Society” of dependency had miraculously succeeded in convincing minority populations of America that “Conservatives” were the enemy. 

Monday, November 20, was the United Nations’ Universal Children’s Day. To help mark the occasion, Dr. Gary S. Smith looks at the plight of the world’s children and argues that we ought to commit ourselves to working to give them a better life. Smith writes, “Instead of throwing our arms up in despair, let’s act to help the world’s children. The world has enough resources to provide all children with adequate food to eat and clean water to drink.”

For over 20 years we have been unwitting enablers of sexual misconduct and abuse in Congress.  It has the degenerate smack of the fallen Roman Empire.

If there is anyone on Planet Earth this side of Harvey Weinstein who should keep his mouth tightly shut on the topic of the conduct or judgment of others it is Trump.

Paxton predicts this will happen again. Laws against guns only keep guns out of the hands of the law-abiding. There were laws in place to prevent Devin Kelley from acquiring a gun. He just didn't obey them.

There is a good case to be made for excising California from the United States republic. If they don't see fit to secede on their own, I suggest we explore this route.

The National Health Service—Great Britain’s socialized medical system—recently released treatment guidelines stating that patients who are obese or who smoke will be banned from receiving “non-urgent” surgeries. Why the new policy? In this article, Richard D. Kocur examines the guidelines and argues that it “cuts to the heart of why socialized medicine ultimately fails those whom it is designed to serve.”

“Bipartisan” is defined as anything consisting of, or supported by, members of two parties, especially two major political parties. That is the definition of the word.

 As practiced, however, bipartisanship is used as a public opinion weapon in the hands of the public. It is hoped that calls for bipartisanship will help beat an opponent into submission. What is said is one thing. What is actually done is another. Calls for bipartisanship become a semantics power game.

Bipartisanship is a staged propaganda event, short and simple.

Are Americans in favor of cooperation? Yes.

 Bipartisanship? Take a knee.

An upcoming argument before the Supreme Court will ask the question: Should a baker in Colorado be compelled by the state to make a cake for a same-sex wedding reception when the baker has religious and free-speech objections to using his artistry that way? Will the Supreme Court uphold the right of Americans to be free from being compelled by the state to express a message against one’s beliefs? In this article, Dr. John Sparks examines the case and what is at stake in this important upcoming decision.