Dakota Beacon

All the turkey-time trappings of the Thanksgiving holiday tend to numb our sincere reflection. But this is a perfect time to consider whether we are thanks-giving or ungrateful people. Being grateful isn’t natural. Gratitude, for all its merit, is not something easily embraced or practiced, especially as we all face life’s challenges.

It is easier to complain than to be grateful. One of the biggest problems we all have is pride. We say to ourselves, “I deserve better.” “This is wrong.” “You’ve got to be kidding me.” “Not me, I’m not due this.”

How often do you feel grateful? But more importantly, how often do you pause to sincerely express it? If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is not enough—not even close.

In “My troubling COVID vaccine story experiences,” I wrote last year about how within a short period of time I met three men at the same recreational area who announced to me they’d had heart attacks. All three had previously taken the coronavirus genetic-therapy agents (GTAs, aka “vaccines”). Add the friend who suffered heart inflammation and the neighbor of mine who had an adverse reaction after having the shots, and it was quite a series of “anomalies.” I’ve had another similar experience now, too.

While in a supermarket checkout line Saturday, I got to talking to the fellow behind me, who was holding a pair of floral bouquets. He’d bought them for two different funerals. One was for his brother, who’d died of a heart attack — at age 24. The other was for a friend’s son who’d passed away. I asked him how old was the son was.

The Thanksgiving story never gets old. Unfortunately, some aspects are not well known. Most people have heard the names Samoset and Squanto. But, who were they?

The English Pilgrims, products of the Reformation, fled persecution to live their Christianity as they understood it. Their search for freedom eventually took them to North America seeking to establish a charter colony in Virginia. Inclement weather forced them off course bringing the Mayflower on November 21, 1620 to the shores of what is now Massachusetts. That winter took a deadly toll on the small Pilgrim contingent. Almost half died. Only three families remained intact.

Brown University professor Emily Oster has created quite a stir with her recent article asking for a “pandemic amnesty.” In it, she calls for “both sides” in the COVID debate to forgive each other so we can focus on solving current problems. If Oster wanted exposure, she certainly got it, with commentators far and wide responding to her plea. If she wanted to heal wounds and close chasms, however, she failed miserably. Many have told her to go pound sand.

Genuine calls for forgiveness are noble, but, Professor Oster, you (and your critics) miss a significant point here: Forgiveness does not obviate punishment. Were it otherwise, following Jesus’s “70×7” prescription would mean emptying the prisons and hurting our beloved children by never holding them accountable for misbehavior. 

While my data are far from exhaustive (and I’d welcome a more comprehensive analysis), the pattern I’ve outlined appears to hold everywhere or virtually everywhere.

What explains this? Big Tech meddling is significant — liberal researcher Robert Epstein found that it can shift up to 15 million votes in an election — but are Floridians somehow immune to Google and social-media influence? Or, maybe, did the polling outfits decide, inexplicably, to apply wholly unique criteria to Sunshine State polling?

Leftists will no doubt explain the anomaly by claiming that Florida practiced voter suppression. I would say that if you believe this, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you. But that swampland may actually now be quite valuable, as Americans are flocking to that state to escape Third World-like governance.

Definition of the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol: A Democrat-controlled spectacle of a show trial concocted to propagandize the American public. Next hearing: November 14 (post-midterm election) featuring Donald Trump.

January 6, 2021 produced a dust-up that occurred at the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC. This organized protest was meant to be peaceful -- but strident. Its intent was a vocal rejection of what many people, with good reason, still believe was a dishonest 2020 presidential election. There is plenty of evidence that the purported “Insurrection” (so named by the champions of cheating) appeared bought and paid for by corrupt FBI leadership contrived to frame Donald Trump and his supporters. May the perpetrators of perfidy meet their match following the November 8 Election!

Should the race of a minority student who is applying to a college or university give him or her a decided preference over other applicants? Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases involving affirmative action in the college admission process. In this article, constitutional scholar Dr. John Sparks details the cases before the court and writes, “In both the cases—the Harvard case and the UNC case—lengthy trials unearthed considerable factual evidence which showed that race played an important and repeated part during the admission process. That is precisely what the plaintiff students find unfair and unconstitutional.”

Observing the incompetent leadership in the White House, a person may reasonably ask “Who’s really in charge?” Does the mantle fall on the “duly elected” president? Or, in Biden’s cognitively weakened state, are others propping him up to be used as a front for their own purposes?

One question begets another. Why would not any sensible person regard the manipulation of a cognitively impaired president by others a plausible explanation for his radical policy agenda? After all, Biden’s cabinet as well as the Executive Office of the President (EOP) are comprised of over seventy percent of high-level personnel from President Obama’s administration. Conspiracy theory? Let’s look behind the veil.

How we think about K-12 education we remember from our early years when we were in school. For example, if we graduated in 1960, we tend to think of school today as we knew it then.

Times change. President Jimmy Carter federalized public education in 1979 by establishing the Department of Education as a reward for the National Education Association’s (NEA) help with his campaign. Local control of education has since dissipated. Teachers, parents, and school boards have little to say over federally mandated programs and policies imposed on schools nationwide. Controlling the distribution of dollars gives the Department of Education enormous leverage.

On October 24, 1972, the world lost a hero. Fifty years ago today, Jackie Robinson passed away at the young age of 53. In this article, author Gary Scott Smith pays tribute to Robinson and his remarkable life. He writes, “Robinson is rightly revered as the trailblazer who smashed the color barrier in Major League Baseball, helping pave the way for people of color to play not only baseball but also professional football, basketball, tennis, and golf. Less remembered is his pioneering role in the civil rights movement and his creation of several businesses to employ African Americans.”

This month marks 60 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This anniversary is marked with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric that Russia is ready to use its nuclear arsenal in the war with Ukraine. Can Russia’s threat be averted? In this article that first appeared at National Catholic Register, Dr. Paul Kengor looks back to the Cuban Missile Crisis and details the harrowing days and the steady leadership that ended the crisis. He writes, “Sixty years ago, it took the skill and resolve of key statesmen to pull the world back from the precipice. Do we have such men with such abilities in those posts today?”

With Halloween upon us, progressive elites continue their attempts to scare Americans with their manmade climate change prank. Those who buy into this drivel are like little kids listening to ghost stories. Unconscientiously, they want to be frightened.

Doom-and-gloom environmentalists pushed their climate change silliness as early as the 1960s. Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” pioneered the environmental movement setting the scene for manmade climate change activism. Chicken Little’s mantra “the sky is falling” still echoes through the media today.

The centerpiece of liberty—freedom of speech—cannot yield to the new use and abuse of public accommodations laws like the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act

With the stock market down nearly 20% year-to-date in 2022, investors are paying close attention to the financial performance of their portfolios: seeking to protect 401Ks, looking for safe havens, and trusting that their fiduciary asset managers are making the right decisions with ever-shrinking nest eggs. The last thing any investor would want now is for asset managers to be investing in companies for any reason other than to maximize financial return.

Defund the police. Cut the force. Criminals prevail. 911 is unreliable. Soros-backed District Attorneys release offenders. We live in an unsafe nation in decline.

The national media routinely covers atrocious murders. Seldom, however, do they report episodes of armed citizens effectively defending themselves. Many local radio and TV stations along with small newspapers do report armed citizen stories. The National Rifle Association (NRA) (of which my wife and I are both life members) publishes “The Armed Citizen” column to highlight a few of the many stories each month. Without the local reporting of these stories, the NRA would have a difficult time gathering the information. It must be noted that the NRA offers firearms training and gun safety courses across the nation. Here are some of their stories.

With news that Israeli intelligence has detected an “irregular presence” of nuclear-capable Russian bombers near Finland and retired general David Petraeus casually saying NATO would likely sink Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea fleet if Russia used a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, it’s perhaps time for a few questions:

First, can we discuss a situation that could very well result in thermonuclear war — and the end of life as we know it — intelligently and rationally? Or must all questions about our Dr. Strangelove policy be met with childish name-calling (e.g., “stooge of Putin!”) designed to silence debate?

Second, is it a good idea to essentially tell a man who controls 6,200 nuclear weapons, and who our pseudo-elites may label “crazy,” you want to kill him? This is what Joe Biden’s and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for Russian “regime change” really amounts to, mind you.

With harvest underway and kids in school can autumn be far behind? Shorter days and cooler nights signal summer’s end. It’s not too soon to think of autumn as the grand introduction to the Holidays that follow. It’s only a matter of time before the first frost descends.

What better way to conclude the summer than by browsing through the poems of James Whitcomb Riley. I’ve written about him before. Few writers capture the sense of nostalgic Americana than does Riley. Themes of nature, seasons, family, and friends make Riley one of America’s most recognizable poets. His sentimental style and countrified lingo recall a simpler, bygone era.

The intellectual climate in America today may be measured by academia’s focus on sexuality and sexual fads -- gay marriage, gender studies, and do-your-own-thing promiscuity. Little wonder families increasingly seek alternatives to government schools.

Again, what should be taught? Contemporary education could incorporate the latest shake-and-bake theories of education laced with politically correct themes of ethnicity, gender, self-esteem, revisionist history, adulterated literature, and dumbed down math and science.

Or, education could embrace classical themes on which Americans built a vibrant beacon to the world including mathematics, natural and physical sciences, logic, rhetoric, classical literature and poetry, history, philosophy, economics, and music.

Military wokeness as an ideological movement starts at the top, the White House and the Department of Defense (DoD), before being imposed on the troops. It fills a vacuum in young people who were never taught sound American history. Liberal leftists and progressives see wokeness as a good thing. It enhances a person’s "wakefulness" to so-called “social injustice” allegedly widespread in the US. Under the pretext of wokeness they proceed to tear down longstanding institutions woven into the US social fabric and intend to replace these elements with an artificial social and political concoction.

A Book Review of 

Give Speech A Chance: Heretical Essays

on What You Can't Say or Even Think

by

Harley Price, Ph.D.

(hardcover, FGF Books, 2022)

A few days ago, the Honorable Ken Starr died of complications from surgery. Starr was a legal giant for decades in Washington, D.C. and later entered the world of higher education. In 2015, while he was president of Baylor University, Starr came to Grove City College to give an address at the inauguration of the Honorable Paul J. McNulty ’80. In this tribute, McNulty reflects on over 30 years of knowing Starr—a mentor, a colleague, and a friend. McNulty writes, “If life was baseball, Ken Starr was Albert Pujols and I was a September call-up. Yet in every interaction I had with him, he never made me feel small or unworthy. He was unfailingly gracious, even to the point of seeking my thoughts on challenging issues.”

This piece is dedicated to some of a younger generation short on wisdom who are perpetually offended by imaginary transgressions in the name of the “social justice” fairytale.

In George Orwell’s classic “1984,” the inhabitants of Oceania were encouraged to adopt Newspeak, a language inhibiting speaking, writing, and thought opposed to the ruling dictate.

In the US, some favor WokeSpeak while others reject it. To the Right, WokeSpeak endeavors to control people's thoughts and actions. If you don't conform to WokeSpeak, you will be canceled. On the other hand, Liberals see "Wokeness" as a good thing. It enhances your "wakefulness" to so-called “social injustice” all around.

What to do about the intrusion of WokeSpeak? Be kind responding with satire and comedy. Gently ridicule with a laugh. Portray WokeSpeak as the farce that it is. And remember, the pen and the internet video are mightier than the sword. English is too rich a language to cavalierly pollute.

Recently I read an essay in the “Claremont Review of Books,” a journal published quarterly by the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, a steal for $19.95 a year. The essay “Voting Rights and Wrongs” by Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Review, was too rich not to share.

In a word, Kesler traces the history of voting rights from the end of the Civil War up through a disturbing trend promising an ill future for democratic elections.

What follows is a digest of Kesler’s article. He identifies a first, second, and third generation of voting rights measures to denote a manipulative progression of change overtime.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died yesterday at the age of 91. This morning, the media is covering his passing with tributes to his political career and his involvement in ending the Cold War. In this article that first appeared at The American Spectator, Ronald Reagan scholar Dr. Paul Kengor discusses something often overlooked: Gorbachev’s faith. Kengor writes, “I have written so much about Gorbachev, in so many articles and books, that it’s just impossible to try to sum up the man’s life and legacy. Where to begin? It’s a daunting task, but I think I can add two worthwhile things that others will ignore or get wrong in their tributes to Gorbachev.”

When does political bias become bigotry and racism? And how do we recognize it? In this article, Dr. Luke Conway discusses recent political attacks that appear to have crossed the political bias line. To illustrate what is going on, Conway details two recent studies that shed light on the alarming trend.

President Biden’s administration with its Open Borders policy solidified its partnership with Mexican cartels. Cartels are the Democrat Party’s new best friend making billions of dollars from drugs and human trafficking while Biden’s administration grooms new voters by not enforcing the law.

Indeed, the US faces a crisis of unprecedented proportions at the southern border. Overwhelmed by adult and underage migrants, cabinet-level Democrat officials knowingly forfeit control of the border. Illegals from 160 different countries are released into the US with a “promise” to return some day for a court hearing. US officials cannot track the illegals once released. But cartels in the US can. They regularly extract payment from illegals’ wages for unpaid transit debts. Meanwhile, deadly drugs flow across the border in a deluge killing over 100,000 Americans last year alone.

Are Christians too nice? Is being nice just a cloak for cowardice? Many popular Christian pastors, professors, and writers have recently been debating these questions in the public square. In this article, author Lewis Waha outlines the debate and argues that all Christians share common ground: kindness. He writes, “Kindness always admits of speaking hard truths in love. At the same time, not every effort to avoid offending others is cowardice. As the proverb goes, discretion is the better part of valor.”

Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has brokered a “compromise” on one of the most controversial issues of the day: which sexual expressions the churches in the Anglican Communion should allow. In this article, Dr. Joseph Horton asks, “How does one compromise irreconcilably different positions?” Horton examines the solution proposed by Archbishop Welby and argues that Biblical teaching is the only standard by which any doctrine should be judged.

Americans (and probably most Europeans) are finding themselves dependent upon a medical establishment that does not have their health and well-being as a primary focus anymore.  The medical  business has morphed from a humanitarian, service-oriented profession of skilled practitioners who truly sought solutions and cures into a money-grasping colludor with giant pharmaceutical companies and their partners in government, to fleece the public while skipping the health-care part.  I have run into some argument from people when I have said this, but just like the evidence that the vaccines* are not safe or effective, the evidence is mounting that the medical establishemtn couldn't care less - as long as they stay on the right side of government and Big Pharma.  It is a tragedy, to be sure.  But where once doctors consulted the science and sought remedies and cures for people's ills, now they evaluate them on a political expediency scale.  If they are complaining about after-effects of COVID vaccines* they will more likely be shamed and cast out than helped.  When hospitalized for COVID, patients are generally denied helpful and proven drugs like Ivermectin, but forced onto ventilators and given Remdesivir, which many experts are now claaiming is killing the patients who take it.  Doctors who take excpetion to these protocols are very likely to be severely punished.  

How should Americans regard the January 6 so-called “insurrection” and the hearings conducted by the very, very select members of the US House of Representatives? The official committee title comes pejoratively billed as “United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.” Of the nine committee members, Nancy Pelosi selected seven Democrats and two Republicans. She nimbly stacked the deck selecting Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who had voted to impeach Donald Trump. Watch this investigation vainly search for a crime.

This hearing is not the first hoax. Context helps. What follows takes us down memory lane.