RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-former-slave-who-loved-the-constitution/

“The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” These words were delivered by a former slave. The all-caps emphasis was his. In an 1852 speech entitled What to the Slave is the Fourth of July the inimitable Frederick Douglass called out the evil of slavery while praising an undeniable instrument of liberation: the U.S. Constitution.

If you visit the National Museum of African-American History and Culture’s (NMAAHC) online exhibit of Douglass’ Fourth of July speech, you won’t see or hear any mention of the Constitution. It’s not the first or last time that the Smithsonian will suppress history. Remember, NMAAHC is the same museum that heavily pushes racist “White Privilege” rhetoric and the infamous (but removed) “Whiteness and White Culture” infographic that proclaimed having a hard work ethic, intact married family, and using objecting rational thinking were “white.”

The Left loves its racism.

We live in an America that is vastly changed from the one in 1852. Too many enjoy being bound up in the past as they refuse to see the profoundly altered present. They choose to paint a false America and take pride in dividing us by the beautiful hues of our skin.

Former NFL antagonist and activist, Colin Kaepernick, loves trotting out the pre-abolition excerpts from this Douglass’ speech in an attempt to justify his fake oppression as a multi-million-dollar brand ambassador for Nike (an actual oppressor that profits from forced labor) and former professional athlete. Douglass rightfully denounces the failure of our nation’s political and religious leaders to live up to our national creed and Biblical principles. However, anti-America progressives ignore the hope offered in Douglass’ fiery address: “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.”

If a former slave can say he does not despair, why do modern-day, self-proclaimed (celebrity) victims constantly portray America as a place of oppression, doom and gloom? Douglass continued:

“‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened,’ and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.”

What are the obvious tendencies of this age? With the rise of wokism in our public schools, the solidifying of Marxism in our colleges and universities, and the celebration of tyrannical regimes like China in Hollywood and professional sports, leftist tendencies seem to want to “burn down the system.” Literally.

Ruth Colker, the Distinguished University Professor and Heck Faust Memorial Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, has a radically different take than Douglass. She calls the Law of the Land the “White Supremacist Constitution.” Colker, who is white, writes: “The United States Constitution is a document that, during every era, has helped further white supremacy. Rather than understand the document as a force for progressive structural change, we should understand it as a barrier to change. Put differently, the U.S. Constitution has been a resounding success at preserving white supremacy. For example, U.S. citizens in the District of Columbia, who are disproportionately racial minorities, are provided no power in the U.S. Senate, while the former slave-holding states of Alabama and Mississippi have as much Senatorial power as California and New York.”

There’s that hopeless and historically-challenged progressivism. The Senate is intentionally meant to have equal representation from each state; Colker doesn’t mention that the House’ representation is based on population. You would think a “distinguished” professor would know these basic facts. The Constitution was ratified in 1788. The District of Columbia wasn’t created until 1790. In 1800 the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 70% of DC was white. DC didn’t become a majority-black city until 1957.

Don’t let historical accuracy get in the way of political zealotry. New York Times bestselling author and anti-racism propagandist, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, wants to pass an “anti-racism” amendment to our Constitution. Kendi has expressed the only way to fight (alleged) discrimination is with more (actual) discrimination. He believes his racist Critical Race Theory approach to governance is the way forward: “To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.” In his Politico Op-ed, Kendi duplicitously demands that “we have to prevent public officials from dividing Americans through racist ideas” as his best-selling books undeniably divide people by color.

Kendi’s worldview is hostile to that of Dr. Martin Luther King. With “anti-racism”, content of character no longer matters; color is supreme. Yet Dr. King, who actually experienced the codified systemic racism that Kendi pretends to face, had this to say about nonviolent activism and the Constitution in his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech: “And I knew that as they were sitting in [at the lunch counter], they were really standing up for the best in the American dream, and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”

The concepts of liberty espoused in our Declaration of Independence and our amendable Constitution are worth defending and celebrating. Combined with our rich Judeo-Christian heritage, they make America an exceptional nation that draws more people worldwide than any other nation.

Douglass impacted millions in his lifetime with his indefatigable advocacy for human equality. His words have generational reverberations. He influenced a President – a friend – who continually evolved on the issue of “race” because of Douglass’ faith-based convictions and eloquence. Abraham Lincoln so presciently summed up the power of We The People: “The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses and Courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/05/dr-john-money-and-the-sinister-origins-of-gender-ideology/

We are all too familiar today with the basics of trans ideology. That biological sex does not determine one’s ‘gender identity’. That someone born biologically male can become female. And that we need to affirm a person’s ‘gender identity’, even if that person is a small child. What few perhaps realise is that the intellectual origins of so much of trans ideology can be traced back to the work of one man – sexologist and psychologist Dr John Money (1921-2006).

New Zealand-born Money was a pioneer in his field of sexuality and gender. In 1955, he was the first person to use the word ‘gender’ as opposed to ‘sex’ to draw a distinction between the biological attributes and the behavioural characteristics that differentiate males from females. He subsequently popularised terms like ‘gender identity’ and even founded the world’s first gender-identity clinic at John Hopkins University in Baltimore in the US in 1966, specialising in the psychological and medical treatment of transgender patients. Above all, Money pushed the view, so central to today’s trans movement, that though we may be born with biologically determined sex characteristics, they do not determine whether we are male or female. Without Money, it’s unlikely that trans ideology, especially the phenomenon of ‘trans kids’, would exist today in the way that it does.

Not everything Money believed about gender has been absorbed by the trans movement. He believed, for instance, that when children are around two years old they pass through a ‘gender-identity gate’, which locks in their gender for the rest of their lives. Few trans activists would make such a claim today. But the central idea that Money first developed is still upheld by trans activists today – namely, that being male or female is not biologically determined. This is the idea that drives trans ideology, and the notion of trans kids, today. It means that someone can be born with male genitalia, but they can still ‘become’ female.

So why is Money rarely mentioned by those promoting trans ideology today? You won’t find him cited in Stonewall educational guides. You won’t see him quoted in any Mermaids documents. And you won’t hear the #BeKind brigade paying tribute to him. The reason for this is simple enough: John Money’s work was creepy, cruel and amoral – and left a trail of misery, pain and suicide in its wake.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/washingtons-239-year-old-christmas-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-11671830842?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

There’s been so much talk lately about threats to our sturdy republic that it’s worth reflecting on a time when American democracy really was fragile and the actions of one man were essential in allowing it to thrive. It was on this day in 1783 that George Washington performed perhaps the greatest of all his services to our country.

Richard Snow wrote in the Journal in 2014:

One day toward the end of the Revolution, the expatriate American painter Benjamin West fell into a conversation about the war with George III (although one would think His Majesty would hardly have welcomed the topic). West said he believed that when the fighting was done, George Washington would retire. The king was incredulous: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
When Washington did just that in 1783, another American artist, John Trumbull, wrote from London to say that the resignation “excites the astonishment and admiration of this part of the world. ’Tis a Conduct so novel, so inconceivable to People, who, far from giving up powers they possess, are willing to convulse the Empire to acquire more.”

Thomas Fleming wrote in the Journal in 2007:

The story begins with Gen. Washington’s arrival in Annapolis, Md… The country was finally at peace — just a few weeks earlier the last British army on American soil had sailed out of New York harbor. But the previous eight months had been a time of terrible turmoil and anguish for Gen. Washington, outwardly always so composed. His army had been discharged and sent home, unpaid, by a bankrupt Congress — without a victory parade or even a statement of thanks for their years of sacrifices and sufferings.
Instead, not a few congressmen and their allies in the press had waged a vitriolic smear campaign against the soldiers — especially the officers, because they supposedly demanded too much money for back pay and pensions…
Congressman Alexander Hamilton, once Washington’s most gifted aide, had told him in a morose letter that there was a “principle of hostility to an army” loose in the country and too many congressmen shared it. Bitterly, Hamilton added that he had “an indifferent opinion of the honesty” of the United States of America.
Soon Hamilton was spreading an even lower opinion of Congress. Its members had fled Philadelphia when a few hundred unpaid soldiers in the city’s garrison surrounded the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall), demanding back pay. Congressman Hamilton called the affair “weak and disgusting to the last degree” and soon resigned his seat.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/american-christmas-1776-victory-or-death/

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

“One had to be a fool or a fanatic in early January 1776 to advocate American independence.” That is the considered judgment of one of the leading historians of the American Revolution. Meeting in Philadelphia, delegates from the thirteen colonies to the second Continental Congress had been discussing independence for months leading up to January 1776. Some were strong advocates. All delegates were pledged not to reveal the secrets of their conversations outside the doors of Congress. One reason for this was that discussion of independence was dangerous. Independence meant rebellion. Rebellion meant treason. Treason was a capital offense.

Nonetheless, one of those delegates, a 29-year-old physician and spirited patriot from Philadelphia named Benjamin Rush, sought out an acquaintance who was not a member of Congress to discuss advocating independence to the public. This acquaintance, a few years older, had been an unknown shopkeeper in England until a couple of years before; now he worked as an editor and writer for Pennsylvania Magazine; soon he would become the famous Thomas Paine. Paine liked Rush’s idea, maybe even more than Rush did. He set to work writing, and the two began to meet at night in Rush’s home reading passages aloud and editing them. When the pamphlet was finished, Rush suggested a title and arranged for a printer. On January 10, 1776, Common Sense was published, arguing fiercely and uncompromisingly for American independence. It became more widely read than any merely human writing yet published in America and contributed greatly to making the idea of independence seem not foolish or fanatical, but inevitable. On July 4, 1776 America went from discussing and advocating independence to declaring it. But declaring independence was a long, long way from achieving it.

By summer 1776, the most powerful navy in the world was conveying the greatest British expeditionary force in history across the ocean to suppress the American rebellion—over 30,000 professional soldiers, including 17,000 Hessians, experienced, fully equipped, and backed by the wealth of empire. George Washington’s rag-tag Continental Army seemed no match for this great force. The most informed leaders in England thought and said that they would make short work of the rebels. European powers largely agreed. Tories and even many revolutionaries in America thought the same thing. Through the summer and fall of 1776, Washington and his army suffered one defeat after another, retreating from New York, across New Jersey, and finally crossing the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, as British and Hessian forces pursued. His men were in tatters, many had no shoes and wrapped their feet in rags. Many were sick. Many more were dispirited. Winter was coming on. Enlistments would expire at the end of the year. On December 20, Washington wrote Congress: “10 days more will put an end to the existence of this army.”

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/religion/2022/12/three-chanukah-cheers-for-the-maccabees/

EXCERPT

The history behind this festival is extraordinary. What’s more, far from being important only to the Jewish people only, this festival is relevant to the entire Western civilization. I would even go as far as to say that this festival commemorates a decisive moment for the Western world because the events of more than 2000 years ago celebrated at Chanukah influenced — indeed, determined — the future of we know today as the Western world. If you think this assertion a bit over the top, please read on.

The Hanukkah story

Let me take you back to the time of the Greek-Syrian despot Antiochus III (222 -186 BC) , succeeded by his son Seleucus IV,  and then by his brother of the same name during one of the most dramatic times Israel has endured in all its long and difficult history.  Needing the money to pay off the Romans, who won a war against him, Seleucus decided to foot the bill by confiscating the treasure from the Temple in Jerusalem. At the time, every Jewish adult paid a special tax – ‘half a shekel” – in order to provide for orphans, to provide for the sacred rituals and, of course, to maintain the Temple itself. The decision to confiscate the national treasure was met with outrage but the people were helpless to resist.

Seleucus IV was succeeded in 174BC by his brother, Antiochus IV, more commonly known as Epimanes, the madman.  To root out an intractable Jewish individualism he forbade all Jewish laws to be followed. The Jews rebelled, were crushed and thousands died. Jewish worship was forbidden, the Torah scrolls were siezed and burned, their study declared punishable by execution.  Sabbath rest, circumcision and the observing of dietary laws were prohibited under pain of death, with many more thousands killed for refusing to comply. The spark which ignited the firestorm was lit in the village of Modiin, where an elderly priest, Mattityahu, refused to offer sacrifices as demanded by the gods of the Greeks. The villagers fell upon the Syrian soldiers and killed them. After this, the Jews had no choice but to seek refuge in the surrounding hills of Judea, and that is where the rebellion became a guerrilla war. The Jewish volunteer legions were formed, led by Juda Maccabee. This name, by way of background, was an acronym of the four Hebrew words Mi Kamocha Ba’Eilim Hashem – “Who is like You, oh G-d”.

Despite their overwhelming strength, the Syrian-Greek armies were defeated by the Maccabees, who returned to Jerusalem in triumph and rededicated the Temple, casting out the idols placed there in 139 BCE.