Dakota Beacon

On the heels of a recent Sunday magazine profile of Glenn Beck, The New York Times published a roundtable discussion among six scholars on the issue of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson has become a popular Beck target, and has suddenly emerged as a hot topic in our current politics.

My take on Wilson, however, is very different from what I'm hearing from Beck or from scholars on the left or right, whether pro-Wilson or anti-Wilson. It relates to a crucial aspect of Wilson that needs to be better known and which, dare I say, might even prompt Beck to amend his view—slightly perhaps.

Nothing that could reconcile the flat-out Marxist-Leninist Obama was in his college days with the man he supposedly is today.  There’s no one who says, “Yeah, man was he was a radical guy in his youth, and I just couldn’t believe how he became disenchanted with his old ideas.”  There are no stories about a great epiphany, an overseas trip that opened his eyes or a personal tragedy that inspired growth.  There’s nothing to explain how a radical Marxist became a reasonable politician.  And if there is such an explanation, it’s the most elusive of missing links.

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Remember always, dear reader, especially all my dear friends at AARP: Ehrlich’s, Gore’s, Obama’s and every “share the wealth” advocate in history, has ALWAYS thought in terms of world conquest—because they understand very well, that as long as there is a place where freedom exists, men will seek it. Remember, also that  2+2=4 and H2o makes water, NO MATTER WHAT IT SAYS ON THE UNTEATHERED BALLON FLOATING IN THE BREEZE OF CONSENSUS OF OPINION

Tea Party folks – start ordering your burqas now.  The supply might be insufficient! I see some marketing opportunities here and a cottage industry of burqa making - the capitalist system at its very best!

Thank you President Barak Hussein Obama for providing exactly the hope and change America needs.

The election is over and the people have spoken.

Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.

Andrew Jackson.

Billy's sixth wife?

The fact is that the United States isn’t as democratic as we’d like to think it is. We cherish the idea that the vox populi (the voice of the people) predominates over the will of privileged elites; that government is subordinate to the people (that it serves the people, rather than ruling them); that those in positions of governmental power should be accountable to the people from whom they derive their authority; that government is, essentially, ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Is that the kind of system we have today? Let’s see.

The Tea Party movement and its millions of supporters have high hopes that the recent elections will rein in runaway government. Would-be reformers will also have to deal with the larger, permanent, unelected powers that aren’t accountable to the people. Elected officials come and go. Perhaps the greatest damage to democracy has been the tremendous amount of power amassed by ‘the permanent government,’ the unelected federal bureaucrats.

Could anyone else - the four simple authors of the Gospels, for example - have made him up, and put such resonant words in his mouth? "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." That's another claim that seems to be holding up pretty well.

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The 1874 election was like the 2010 election, only much bigger. It was a remarkable repudiation of Reconstruction. The Democrats took 85 Congressional seats away from the Republicans and won two vacant seats. Alabama and Arkansas voted out their Republican governments. Florida voted in a Democratic majority in the state legislature. Even states in such hardcore Radical Republican areas as New England and the Great Lakes elected Democrats to previously solid Republican seats.

The problem for those involved in the “No Labels” charade is that of late, the Left is taking a shellacking as “Independents” realize what the Left really stands for…namely the “equality” that is “poverty itself”. Of course Independents are those that are too busy living their lives to become entangled with the “takers” or the “leave-us-aloners”. And Independents, because of their disinterest, can rather easily be lured into new marketing techniques such as the “No Labels” ruse. Individualists, we have a lot of educating to do!

Progressives are unhappy people who stomp through life feeding gullible lab rats idyllic theories that invite a living hell. Do we want progressives strutting and preaching while “transforming” America, or would we rather shake our heads as they throw tantrums while the rest of us live happy, prosperous, and free?

When the Nazis and Bolsheviks jointly invaded, annihilated, and partitioned Poland. The Soviets seized thousands of Polish military officers as prisoners. Their fate was sealed on March 5, 1940 when Stalin signed their death warrant, condemning 21,857 of them to ‘the supreme penalty: shooting.

The people of Poland got an early Christmas present this year. It’s bittersweet but long awaited, and indeed a gift of sorts—and from an unlikely source: Russia. In Moscow, the State Duma, Russia’s legislature, passed a statement conceding Soviet responsibility for the Katyn Woods massacre, one of the 20th century’s worst war crimes…. The apology from the Duma was something Poles waited decades to hear. It was something many of us who have studied and written about this incident have waited to hear. And it is too bad that Franklin Delano Roosevelt is not around to hear it. FDR? Yes, FDR. Let me explain.

Could it be that President Obama disagreed with Summers’ about unemployment benefits on political grounds thus earning Summers a vote of no confidence? In the face of politically motivated and ideologically driven policies, economic reality will lose every time. Who wants to stick around when their advice is no longer appreciated? Maybe that, among other disagreements, motivated Summers to leave.

For if “morality” is “values” and values are tastes, on what credible basis can you advance humanism’s priorities?  Why should we believe that human advancement or dignity is important?  Who is to say?  Hey, don’t impose your values on me, you intolerant humanist!  This is why any relativism-based conception of virtue — or, as the atheists would say, “value system” (Do you know the difference between virtues and values, Chris, Richard and Bill?  Bueller?  Bueller?) — collapses upon itself.  To put it paradoxically, if humanism is true, humanism is false.

That's right, Washington will spend yet more money that it doesn't have, taken from taxpayers not yet born, to pay people to do worthless things, in order to solve a nonexistent problem.

The man who runs the USDA believes that if he motivates business people to do things that make everything more expensive, then prosperity will rise and "climate change" that cannot be stopped will be stopped.

The important question is this: On what basis did the Obama administration and the Congress believe they could use the force of law (IRS enforcement) to compel U.S. citizens to purchase a service, in this case health insurance, against their will? More specific, where in the Constitution is Congress given that kind of power? The answer to that question, given by Judge Hudson, is a blunt, ‘nowhere.’ The expansive jurisprudence of the New Deal has given Congress and President Obama the boldness to try to augment federal power, to the point where such power has no limits.

This case is about individual liberty, and Judge Hudson’s well-reasoned, 42-page decision aggressively and firmly protects that liberty. What will happen upon appeal remains to be seen.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "The Manifesto of Enlightened Conservatism," published by the Oscar-winning Russian filmmaker and actor Nikita Mikhalkov on October 26, provoked quite a stir in Russia. It revived the old debate between the Westernizers and Slavophiles on Russia's role in the world. The liberal Moscow Times found it "disturbing." But outside of Russia, it has not received the attention it deserves, especially in light of the differing political leanings of President Dmitry Medvedev, a presumed Westernizer, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a Russian nationalist.

The ACLU seems unusually active right now. Maybe it’s the Christmas season, which seems to make the ACLU more miserable than usual. I tried to ignore the latest round of ACLU legal challenges, but they became too much. The surge has been remarkably ecumenical, not singling out Protestant or Catholic interests, whether challenging a public school in Florida or trying to compel a Catholic hospital to do abortions. At least the ACLU finds a way to unite Protestants and Catholics.

In the interest of faith and charity, I’d like to add my own ecumenical offering—a history lesson. It concerns some fascinating material I recently discovered on the ACLU’s early founders, especially three core figures: Roger Baldwin, Harry Ward, and Corliss Lamont. I can only provide a snapshot here, but you’ll get the picture.

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Governor Dalrymple's First Budget Proposal

State Spending Driving Graduates Away

Federal Judge Strikes Down Healthcare Law

Five Reasons the "Tax Compromise" Falls Flat

NDTA Audio Clips

The ACLU seems unusually active right now. What gives? Maybe it's the Christmas season, which always seems to spring the ACLU into high gear, more miserable than usual. I tried to ignore the latest round of ACLU legal challenges against religious Americans, but they became too much. The surge has been remarkably ecumenical, not singling out Protestant or Catholic interests.

Progressives are amazing creatures. They don't live in our world. They live in a world in which the laws of science, human nature, and economics defer to brilliant theories. Perfection dwells in the minds of the enlightened ones who choose to live an alternative reality.

But progressives in general and greenies in particular are now being exposed for the deceitful preachers that they have always been. Americans are refusing to follow starry-eyed zealots into the poor house.

On this topic, I know of what I write. You see, I am a reformed ‘dupe-ee.’ … My argument was that despite being saddled by what I called ‘inherently problematic native logic,’ the appeasement of North Korea as of 1998 had been a surprising success. I was wrong. Having written a doctoral dissertation on the topic of appeasement, including a detailed analysis of how the policy of appeasement had failed to avert war in the 1930s, I was motivated to try to find a positive example. Could there be a case where appeasement worked? That example seemed to present itself with the so-called ‘Agreed Framework’ concluded between the United States and North Korea in 1994, led by Jimmy Carter.

One thing that saddens me about the TSA security controversy is that we’re missing a great opportunity.  Sure, the insanity of patting down three-year-old, blonde-haired lasses and octogenarian grandmothers with prosthetics has caused a great backlash, as more and more people are realizing that our government’s common-sense-blind approach is born of a deadly allegiance to political correctness.  In fact, I’ve even heard a few usually very careful pundits float the idea that we should think about profiling Muslims.  Unfortunately, though, they invariably drop the ball in the debate.

While dishonesty may play a part in the claims and pontifications of Dionnesque progressives, I believe that the main cause lies in reality-hating ideology. Dionne exhibits textbook, self-imposed, progressive blindness. There has never, not once, been an objective, trustworthy study painting anything other than the picture presented above as to how Americans are taxed across the income spectrum. The wealthy always have, still do today, and always will proportionately bear more tax burden than any other segment of taxpayers. But progressives always want more "fairness."

“Nullification – How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21^st Century”

By Thomas E. Woods, Jr. - Senior Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute

 A book review by Lynn Bergman

 Dr. Woods, in this classic review of history, painstakingly reminds us of the authorized and prohibited powers of the federal government of the United States, of the individual states, and of the citizens of the United States, as defined by our Constitution.

By definition, reference in this book review to our “Constitution” means the Constitution of the United States, including its ratified amendments, the first ten of which are called the “Bill of Rights”.

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