Dakota Beacon

With Thanksgiving past and Christmas three weeks away, it is not too soon to open the Christmas conversation. Despite the drift toward secularizing the Season, Christmas is uniquely a Christian Holy Day.

The Christmas traditions and customs we observe today grew from simple beginnings two millennia ago in Roman-occupied Palestine. Since then, every conceivable style of celebrating Christmas occurred somewhere in the world. Millions of people in dozens of countries kept Christmas for centuries in countless ways.

None of the peculiar or bizarre customs encountered through the centuries dispel the truth of the Biblical account of Christ’s arrival. Cutting through the fog of superstition and staying true to the Biblical text keeps the Christmas celebration in perspective. All the traditions, all the customs, all the superstitions and legends began with the advent of the Christ child two thousand years ago. We would do well to re-read the ancient text before immersing ourselves in the hodgepodge and residue of custom and tradition.

The following is in response to an article by Elliot Glassheim in the Grand Forks Herald (December 2, 2015), entitled, “By what name should we call our enemies?”,  in which we were admonished that Syrian “refugees” are subject to rigorous vetting, that if we reject them we are encouraging radicals, and also that ISIS does not exist - there is no such thing as an “Islamic State”.  We beg to differ . . .

A Book Review of "A History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind by Martin van Creveld"

Lind argues that America should change from offensive to defensive warfare and containment, as we did with communism. Offensive war is bankrupting us and only creating more enemies wanting vengeance and instigating terrorism. Instead we should try to contain, not inflame, Islamist fanaticism and let it burn itself out just as did the religious wars in Europe during the 17th century. Current American strategy, Lind argues, results in losing wars against enemies wearing bathrobes and flip flops. Lind argues that we should work with nations which are sources of order and stability. (Think China.)

From being a lonely voice of dissent from Washington's losing strategy, Lind's concepts are now becoming accepted (see Newsweek's "Can America Win a War?"). If one thinks of America's wars as a business, then they become more understandable as profit centers and career enhancement opportunities. I've delved into this subject with a study, "12 Reasons America Doesn't Win its Wars." Or, as one bitter joke put it, "Most nations waged wars to loot their enemies, America wages war to loot the American treasury."

Under pressure from liberal naysayers and fringe groups, the notion of giving thanks has slowly morphed into a puddle of muddled feelings. Thanksgiving has digressed into a one-size-fits-all four-day weekend.

Despite attempts in recent years to debunk the Thanksgiving story, a certain historical truth offers evidence of a bed rock foundation for the Thanksgiving Spirit. Unfortunately, this evidence cannot be transmitted through the classroom.

A new documentary, “3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy,” chronicles the horror of a late-term abortion clinic in Philadelphia and is playing in select theaters across the country. In 2010, law enforcement raided the offices of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and what they found inside shocked the nation. Recently, Dr. Joseph Horton screened the film and was brought to tears. Horton discusses the documentary and reminds us that, “Healing and forgiveness can be found, even with tragedies like 3801 Lancaster.”  

SQUAWK, SQUAWK!; DIEHARDS; DEJA VU?; IT MAY BE DIFFERENT; UNAUTHORIZED KELLY DOCUMENTARY; WHO IS THE BOSS?; GOOD JOB AND NO COLLEGE DEBT; MDU RESOURCES; NO COMMENT; SELLER’S MARKET; A LONG HISTORY; DAKTOIDS

Reported recently was that Keller, a kindergarten “teacher” at Captain Johnston Blakely Elementary in Bainbridge Island, WA, was refusing to let the boys in her class play with Legos during free play time. 

“Keller…watched with discouragement as self-segregation defined her classroom — her boy students flocked to the building blocks while her girl students played with dolls and crayons and staples, toys that offered them little challenge or opportunity to fail and develop perseverance.” And, of course, innate sex differences evident since time immemorial cannot be allowed, so Keller’s leftist sense of equality compelled her to action. She discriminated so the girls could use the blocks “unencumbered.”

Of the illegal aliens (the May 9 report), the GAO looked at the crimes committed by 55,322 aliens who had entered the country illegally and were still in the United States illegally at the time of their imprisonment during fiscal year 2003. The destruction caused by these illegal aliens is astounding.

There is more shocking information from the US House Judiciary Committee. In fiscal year 2013, the Obama administration released over 36,000 convicted criminal aliens awaiting the results of deportation hearings. In fiscal year 2014, Obama released 30,558 illegal alien criminals. These criminals had been convicted of assault, robbery, sexual assault, sexual offenses, kidnapping, voluntary manslaughter and homicide. In 2013 the Obama administration did not bring removal proceedings against over 68,000 convicted criminal aliens.

ONE LAST TIME; UNTIL HE DIES; WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON AT UND?; GOOD NEW; NEEL KASHKARI; ORUM COMMENTARY; MCFEELY’S THEME; WILLISTON THROWING OUT MAN CAMPS; MCKENZIE COUNTY; WOES IN COAL COUNTRY; NO COMMENT NEEDED; THE GUV WENT TOO FAR; DAKTOIDS

Releasing the controversial “College Scorecard,” President Obama described it as containing “reliable data on every institution of higher education.” That simply isn’t true. Furthermore, the College Scorecard poses risks to institutional autonomy and may shape the American higher education landscape in unexpected ways.

In this must-read article, a president of one of the excluded institutions, The Honorable Paul J. McNulty of Grove City College, examines the College Scorecard and defends the freedom of independence his college fought for, protects, and cherishes. McNulty illustrates Grove City College’s high-quality education, affordability, and success of its graduates—all without a dime of Title IV aid. He writes, “Grove City College has demonstrated that excellence does not have to be bankrolled by the federal government.”

In an attempt to salvage a failing multicultural model and strategy for importing left-leaning voters, we hear that the Muslim migrants must be “vetted” better. A practical problem with this notion is that Syria’s and other Middle Eastern countries’ databases are woefully inadequate, making accurate information on many migrants impossible to obtain. This confronts us with a simple matter of probability: if 1 million migrants enter a nation over time and just 1/10th of 1 percent are terrorists, that’s 1000 dangerous jihadists. 

What are foreigners today supposed to assimilate into in today’s France, Italy, Germany and U.S.? Bread and wine; pasta fagioli; Wiener schnitzel; and baseball, hot dogs and reality TV, all lathered in moral relativism? Are they really going to follow the lead of a dying anomaly in a world of growing religiosity? Heck, I’m a Westerner, and as a believing Christian I refuse to assimilate into my country’s wider culture (although I save my cutting off of heads for broccoli). Thus, with assimilation, even if Muslim migrants were buyin’, they wouldn’t be buyin’ what we’re sellin’.

Art Linkletter once remarked, “Kids say the darndest things.” So do adults, especially if they are politicians. Try a sampling.

I’ve often lamented the profanity rife on the Web (kids sometimes see these things, you know), a phenomenon that just further coarsens society. But that’s not mainly what Leftists complain about when sanctimoniously speaking of “incivility”; in fact, they’re the very ones who mainstreamed profanity (unfortunately, too many conservatives follow their lead), as Hollywood movies attest. Yet their lying tongues are far worse than their dirty mouths. For the worst kind of incivility is insincerity in discourse. 

Is allowing Russia and Iran to call the shots in the Middle East an American foreign-policy mistake? Could a major war—a nuclear war involving Israel—become more likely? In this interesting article, military historian Dr. Earl Tilford examines the rapidly changing political landscape in the Middle East and warns, “Washington’s only chance to retrieve a semblance of strategic leadership in the Middle East is to move decisively against ISIS.” 

CHEW ON THAT; LUTHEREN SOCIAL SERVICES ON THE DEFENSIVE; FARGO’S MOMENT IN THE SUN; IMPASSE; LOSS OF OIL MARKET; SECOND THOUGHTS ON WILLISTON AIRPORT SPENDING; WHOA AT NDSU!; FARGO RAINMAKER; POOR AND DUMB; PRESSURE MOUNTS DUE TO MINNEAPLIS VIOLENCE; MORE TWIN CITY CIVIL SUITS; DAKTOIDS 

This weekend, a highly anticipated film about prominent Hollywood screenwriter and communist Dalton Trumbo debuts in theaters. Will the movie detail the truth about Trumbo? In this interesting article that first appeared at Investor’s Business Daily, Cold War and communism historian Dr. Paul Kengor shares important background information about who Dalton Trumbo really was. 

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus has been excoriated for setting up the CNBC debate, but he perhaps stumbled into gold. No, taking down incompetent propagandists is no substitute for having a fair media in the first place. But, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.” The media have long been launching the salvos and settling matters. It’s time to fight back in the spirit of settling their hash.

To help commemorate Veterans Day, Dr. Paul Kengor tells the story of an American hero: Frank Kravetz, a World War II veteran and former captive of Nuremberg Prison Camp. Kengor writes, “The freedoms we have today, many of which we merrily abuse today, are possible only because of the abuse they suffered at the hands of hellacious enemies 70 years ago.”

In our stupid pragmatism, we keep trying to fashion laws for human beings without defining human nature. It can't be done. You can't make laws appropriate for man, any more than for dog, until you decide whether the critter is angel, beast, or what.

Today Europe faces an immigration crisis of epic proportions from the Muslim world. Purportedly the migration was generated in response to Muslim fighting in the Middle East and the Syrian civil war in particular. Yet, most of the photos and TV footage show predominately young men, not women and children, allegedly escaping the Syrian war zone.

Question: What does Europe’s Islamic colonization imply about our own lack of security and federal policy of non-enforcement along our southern and northern borders? Let the reader decide before the US elections.

FORMER PRES. TOM CLIFFORD; WHAT THEY ARE SAYINg;  NOT QUITE; NEW HONESTY; MORE HONESTY NEEDED; JESUS TURNS MEAN; INTOLERANT FORUM; ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE; LEND A HAND; THE SPOOKIEST HOTEL IN ND; MAKE IT AN EVEN; BAKKEN VALUES TUMBLE; THE NORTH DAKOTA/MINNESOTA STEREOTYPE; DAKTOIDS

Concussions, especially occurring in the game of football, have been the subject of many recent news articles. According to the Brain Injury Association of America, brain injuries have a more devastating impact on a child than a similar injury has on an adult. So, how young is too young to start playing tackle football? In this interesting article, Dr. Gary Welton examines football from the NFL to youth leagues and encourages experts in the field to gather more data on concussions. 

The following is a tribute to all veterans on Veterans Day 2015.

What better way to commemorate the spirit and excellence of America’s veterans past and present than to recount a legendary battle of the Persian Gulf War. This battle, little known by the American public, is intensely studied in military schools as a classic of modern tactics. Within twenty-three minutes a U.S. Army cavalry troop, out-manned and out-gunned by as much as 5 to 1, reduced an Iraqi motorized rifle brigade of the Republican Guard to scrap iron without itself suffering a single casualty. Will America again know such success in a reduced state of military preparedness?

This is the story of the Battle of 73 Easting.

The dilemma America now encounters is, “How will the US Armed Forces fare tomorrow in a major conflict with China or Russia or in the Middle East in the face of sequestration and the on-going purge of senior military officers?” These are real detriments to America’s military capability.

The wind beneath the Mohameds’ wings, the juvenile media, would rather play useful idiot than expose Crock Boy. Part of this, no doubt, is that his tale advances the leftist victim group/victimizer group narrative. And as a Students for a Democratic Society radical once put it, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

Yet there’s another factor: the media are generally ignorant and deluded.

And sometimes downright stupid.

There’s also a psychological phenomenon whereby people would rather participate in a fraud than admit they’d been duped. It’s “‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ — lest I fully realize I’m a dope.”

If those of us saying Clock Boy is Crock Boy are wrong, there was always a simple way to prove it. Exhibit A, the smoking gun — the clock. Where’s the clock?

Oh, yeah, it’s in the corn field with Hillary’s emails. 

DISSIDENTS PLEASE GO AWAY!; WHOSE FAILURE?; THE THIRD BOOM; "WE ARE BUCKING TRENDS AROUND HERE"; BURN IT!; BEHEMOTH; FANCIFUL OR VISIONARY?; FANCIFUL OR VISIONARY?; MN STATE COLLEGE & UNIVERSITIES; THE BLACK LIVES MATTER; ARMED ROBBERIES; CRAIG COBB; HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT; OH MY!; DAKTOIDS

"Put off sodomy, fornication, and iniquity," Saint Paul tells us -- "turn around and put on the garment of Christ!"

Their reply? "No, thanks!" For them, the garment of Christ is a straitjacket. 

Instead liberation from sin, they want liberation from truth.

Like a cancer, the error that has infected many in the hierarchy now infects the popular culture as well.

We can be grateful, at least, that the cards are now face-up on the table. The issue isn't an empty abstraction -- "equality," or "liberty," or "rights" -- it never has been.

The issue is sodomy.

Was Arthur Miller a great playwright? Was he a communist or a patriot? And, as students today study his plays, what are they learning about Miller’s beliefs and motives? In this comprehensive article that first appeared at The American Spectator, Dr. Paul Kengor thoroughly investigates Miller’s actions, connections, and beliefs to offer a history that many students will not receive while studying his plays. 

One thing worse than supporting bad policy is knowingly supporting bad policy.

Worse still is knowingly supporting bad policy and shielding yourself from its destructive effects — while visiting that policy on children. 

As for legislation creating gun-free zones, I’m game. Really. But with one condition written in: any politician voting for the bill must put a “Gun Free Zone” zone sign in front of his home. After all, Mr. Compassionate Liberal, if it’s good enough for America’s children, it’s good enough for you.  

A re-reading of the book “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin, Appleton, WI: American Opinion (1994) proved very worthwhile. Accumulation of the tremendous national debt by the United States was motivation enough. The US debt now stands at somewhat more than $18 trillion. Of that amount, the Obama administration has added $9 trillion.

Despite the book’s title, this is not a “B” novel. It is a very readable history of the creation and workings of the Federal Reserve System, America’s central bank. The title refers to Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast where a clandestine meeting in November 1910 attended by an elite group of financiers gave birth to the Federal Reserve. This is the unbelievable story of smoke and mirrors; pulleys, cogs and wheels that create the grand illusion called money.

BREACH OF DUTY; MORE KELLEY; PLEASE, NOT SUNDOGS!; GRAND SKY; ELUSIVE NITROGEN PLANTS; THE 90TH SAUERKRAUT DAY; THE REACTION HAS BEEN INSANE; SURELY, SHE WILL BE OUT AFTER 3 STRIKES; RACIAL CONFLICT; ST. CLOUD; FARGO’S NEW POLICE CHIEF; ALFONSO RODRIGUEZ JR.; DAKTOIDS