Dakota Beacon

Well, on Tuesday the President told us how great we are as Americans.  What a great future lies ahead.  I hope he is right, but if he is, there will be a lot of people not on the pathway to that glorious future, but watching from the sidelines in designated safe spaces.  I'm talking about the raging incompetence and lack of maturity among our supposed educators.  

We are all somewhat aware that we have been invaded by a foreign culture.  We see the signs - the women in burqas and hijabs, Somali men in native African robes, the local "Islamic Center", the quiet changes in our school curriculum and our school lunch menus, the overly sensitized press, the pandering politicians, the reluctance of law enforcement in some areas to act.  It is the latter which is the subject of today's post.  Please take a look at the links!

There haven’t been any real adult role models since baby boomers decided to be friends with their kids rather than raise them. Teenagers and young adults think they have authority but they haven’t lived long enough to know enough. They have opinions but no wisdom.

This phenomenon is most clearly evident on the left. When adults leave kids unsupervised bedlam and disorder ensues. One need look no further than the Democrat Party.

You question the impact of degraded adulthood? Sample the 2020 Democrat Party platforms at state and national levels as the campaign season opens. The foolishness of the platforms will attest to the utter lack of adult leadership in the Democrat Party.

Troy Polamalu, who played safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2003 to 2014, has been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. While many fans know Polamalu from his activity on the field, there has been something more important in his life than football. In this article, Dr. Gary S. Smith discusses Polamalu’s charity, witness, and strong faith.

We tend to sit back complacently, believing that our Constitution and Bill of Rights will take care of us.  The truth is, we need to take care of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Caucus and convention season is when we need to do this - not after the cake is baked.  Right now we're assembling the ingredients for the batter.  Go to your caucus or convention but make your presence count!  Get commitments from the people you support.  Have them sign a manifesto that calls for absolute support of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

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It has been said that America's special contribution to the world's music is jazz.  And without the contributions of some fabulously talented Black artists there would be very little jazz!  Enjoy today's sampling of some great jazz performances!

The inspiration of Marva Collins has transformed lives.  A Black woman born in Alabama in the depth of the Great Depression learned to believe in herself.  Her father told her she could succeed.  She did.  But it wasn't easy.  She never backed down from a challenge - she took on the most difficult task in the city of Chicago - that of showing the children of the ghetto that their success was up to them.  Her success was that they succeeded.  Please watch some of the inspiring links here.  This is what we should be doing - black or white.  We should be helping children to find the success they were meant to achieve.  Marva Collins is an American hero.

If you believe that because you don't have chidlren or that because they are grown up you don't have any need to worry about what is happening in our schools, think again.  Unless you don't plan to live in a world that will be the domain of today's children grown up.  You had better be worried.  Our children are being taught from the cradle on up some things you might not want to hear.  And remember that their parents have little to nothing to do with what they are being told.  

Today we have another case in point.  Free speech is under constant attack, no less in the western hemisphere than anywhere else.  Our neighbor to the north has become a threatening police state where free speech has all but disappeared.  Only the people themselves, crowd-funding independent journalism even as their tax dollars are siphoned off by parasite lap-dog press, is keeping the flame alive through the good offices of Ezra Levant and Rebel Media.  Of course they are a target of the thought gestapo.  

Yale has just announced that it is discontinuing its course on "Art History - the Renaissance to the Present".  Why, you ask?  Because this history is mainly the work of "dead old white men".  Who benefits from discarding the treasures of Western civilization?  You could say the same about the Fathers of the American Revolution, or about the philosophy of Socrates, or the plays of Shakespeare, the masterpieces of Beethoven, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Magna Carta, Charles Martel and El Cid . . . wait a minute.  Now we're getting somewhere.  The answer is we can only replace our culture with something less if no one knows our culture.

I’m always amazed how so many commentators, perhaps caught up in the “drama” (and wanting to maintain it to maximize ratings/readership) fail to emphasize that with the 67-vote conviction threshold unattainable, the probability is good that Democratic Party Machiavellians have something else in mind.

I’ve long believed that this impeachment had become about flipping the Senate. With control of both Houses of Congress the Democrats could completely stymie the president’s agenda — and rendering his office impotent would be the next best thing to driving him from it.

The truth is that our country is like no other country on earth. Privilege extends to everybody living here. America still represents a cauldron of unprecedented opportunity for all who have the gumption to pursue it. And many citizens and immigrants – legal and illegal – have done just that. The real privilege comes in this land of opportunity when citizens have the freedom to excel beyond their wildest dreams.

Seeing through the fog of pessimism and negativism is not easy. But millions of people in this great land of opportunity do – and succeed. There are far more people who succeed, and thereby make America succeed, than there are those on the Left who would take America down. The real privilege is to live in a country of freedom and overcome the anti-American hate.

Since the end of WWII, America has dedicated itself to bailing out other nations at the expense not only of American taxpayers and our own coffers but at the expense of our morals and those of the recipient nations.  It is time to reassess our foreign aid policies.  This should include any money which goes to the United Nations.  Current controversies should give us a better perspective on how damaging this "charity" has been to everyone involved.

It is time for the truth.  Islam is not a religion - it is a worldwide, virulent movement to impose Islam by force through a worldwide caliphate.  That there is dissension among Muslims about who is to be the Great Caliph, but not much else should give us no comfort.  We cannot allow Islam or Muslims, Islam's adherents by definition, to use our First Amendment protection to invade our country and spread their poisonous beliefs.  We must quit calling Islam a "religion".  There is a good argument to be made here.  Any tyrannical movement can invoke a god and call itself a "religion" for purposes of imposing their belief on us.  It must be confronted and stopped.

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Earlier this week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.” This is the latest in a series of public admonishments of Americans whose wealth values over $1 billion. In this article, economist Dr. Mark Hendrickson discusses the many economic errors in statements against billionaires. Hendrickson writes, “It is morally perverse and economically stupid to demonize, persecute, and seek to eliminate billionaires.”

Tomorrow is the birthday of Mozart!  We should all celebrate this amazing genius.  Whether you enjoy opera, chamber music, the symphony or the dramatic Requiem, you will find something wonderful here.  It can't be helped.  His music is a real pillar of western culture.

Today would mark the 261st birthday of Scotland's greatest poet, and arguably the world's greatest poet - Robert Burns.  Tonight, around the world - literally - people who love Burns will remember him and raise a glass to his Immortal Memory.

In keeping with its general deviousness, the pro-abortion side fears recognition that abortion is a crucial issue, one of those issues that define the very nature of a society.

Our Constitution has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and misrepresented by those who have taken the words, " . . . promote the general welfare . . . " to mean provide government subsidies for all of the basic needs of the people.  Nothing could have been farther from the intention of the Founding Fathers who authored this document.  Our folly in taking these words and manipulating them to mean something they did not intend has caused great damage to our economy, our social fabric and even our foreign relations.

The liberal socialist hotbed of academia became the feeder network for illegitimate and corrupt government practices as early as 1896. John Dewey was an early pioneer establishing his Laboratory School. Children were to be treated as lab rats to test his philosophical and psychological ideas. His alma mater, Columbia University, would eventually produce future teachers who would, in turn, spread across America to teaching colleges raising up a trained cadre of teachers. These, in turn, populated primary and secondary schools and ultimately colleges and universities. Ivy League schools became the primary conduits for a massive, expanding, and largely autonomous federal bureaucracy.

Truth be told, plenty of academics in Ivy League schools and other universities are not necessarily smart. There is ample evidence the current crop of academics are very close-minded and very comfortable with Marxist-Leninist ideas and practices to the exclusion of any other ideas. To wit, the vigorous if not violent rejection of conservative speakers on campuses and the intimidation of conservative professors. They are close-minded non-critical thinkers. Their views are not well-thought-out. Rather than well-reasoned and cogent opinions they conform to the drivel of political correctness. They are indoctrinated believers, what Eric Hoffer identified as the True Believer. Their teaching is the froth of mottos and slogans and secondhand thoughts. The rot that passes for higher education and liberal government should be rethought by those capable of doing so.

One should never live in the past under the sentimental illusion of “the good old days.” On the other hand, redeeming the time by restoring the fundamental values of what is good and true is always a prized objective.

We have come to the last Amendment of the Bill of Rights.  It is a key Amendment - very important and something our legislators should consult and our citizens should stand behind and hold fast to.  One county sheriff, Sheriff Richard Mack, of Graham County, Arizona, challenged the Brady Bill on the basis of the Tenth Amendment.  It was an important case with ramifications far beyond the original issue - the Brady Bill, a gun-grabbing effort.  We also take a look at the fact that gun-free zones promote gun violence.  Who woulda thought?  (Hint:  yours truly). 

Despite the ginned-up fears in Richmond, and likely some hopes for some kind of violence with which to frame the passage of anti-gun rights legislation in Virginia, the thousands who assembled in the state capital were all law-abiding, peaceful and responsible American citizens.  We should not fear our Second Amendment - we should fear losing it to the muddled thinking and/or the totalitarian ambitions of the gun-grabbers.  We also review our Ninth Amendment!

At the moment we have one after another local jurisdiction - city councils, county commissions, even states, deciding which way to go on resettlement of "refugees".  There are different ways to look at this.  We could either resettle the persecuted peoples from other lands - Christians, Jews and other minorities in Islamic-controlled regions, people we know are suffering.  That would be one way, the way I would suggest.  Another is to simply say, "no".  Either of these would tend to make America a safer place and preserve our values as a people.  The other way, and sadly the one which I suspect will prevail, and the least beneficial to everyone, is to resettle Muslims in our country.  If your local jurisdiction is likely to do this, please share this article with your neighbors and your representatives.

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They say that great expectations lead to great accomplishments.  We could say that about the Spanish Riding Academy of Vienna, a 450+ year-old institution which today still provides breathtaking equestrian feats.  Some of us have been fortunate enough to see some wonderful horsemanship in the Mounties' Musical Ride.  Some of us have found the horses the most exciting part of a circus.  A lot of us just love horses.  For all of you who have ever loved these beautiful creatures, this week's Sunday Special is just for you.  Maybe you have been lucky enough to see these horses perform live yourselves.  If so, this will be a lovely reminder, if not, maybe an inspiration to see them for yourself!  The Lippizaner of the Spanish Riding Academy of Vienna . . .

It's a cold night in one of the world's coldest inhabited places.  A hot toddy is not enough.  So I resort to dreams.  People, Places and Thinks is my hostage.  We're going to the Caribbean.  That's it.  At least for tonight.  

The Eighth Amendment deals with "cruel and unusual punishment", excessive bail, fines, and what we view as acceptable in a civilized world.  But our world is becoming less civilized and we can expect challenges even to this reasonable and enlightened Amendment.  We must remember that our culture is under siege and every time we bring into our midst those who cannot or will not accept our way of life, our values and our law, we are setting ourselves up to lose it.  We cannot establish parallel systems of justice.  Think about this as you consider the Eighth Amendment.  Next, an update on a story we brought you a few weeks ago - the rumble going on in the Crookston Diocese, where an intractible bishop is stonewalling parishioners' efforts to bring justice and closure to some terrible violations.  Now another - innocent - priest is paying the price for evil.

As an experienced hydrologist and civil engineer, it has always astounded me that journalists, leftist politicians, and other special interests favoring larger and more intrusive government would gullibly accept individual weather events as further proof of “global warming”. And even more unbelievable is the tendency of the same folks to deem the terms “global warming” and “global climate change” interchangeable. Factually, the first is, at best, a theory and the latter a fact of life. The first is employed by politicians to alarm us to vote a certain way; and the latter is something we should factor into every decision we make as individuals. Individuals can make a difference whereas government can seemingly only magnify differences…

So the next time you hear someone on television, cable, or radio warning that any single weather event proves that global warming is a fact, not just a theory,,, or claims that anyone with a brain denies that climate has always been changing...laugh out loud as I do!