THE FOUNDATION

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” — Patrick Henry

INSIGHT

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well-doing. Go on in the name of God and in the power of His might.” —John Wesley to William Wilberforce

ICHTHUS IMPRIMIS

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” —Ephesians 6:12-13

FAMILY

“Almost half a million fewer women tuned into the big three morning shows this season compared to last. And though that number may not be devastating to ABC, CBS, and NBC just yet, the 10 percent drop off is making networks and their advertisers (a good portion of whom have their revenues tied up in moms’ purse strings) nervous… [L]ikely the culprit is the same ratings disease that has infected all the network news programs—putting a bias spin on topics viewers aren’t terribly interested in anyway… Or maybe the more traditional-minded gals likely to be watching television on weekday mornings would like to hear from some public intellectuals who don’t consider the nuclear family a gross anachronism… Similarly, it could be that mothers are tired of being scared silly over every passing political fad the left has to trot out… Then again, perhaps, like climate change, the daybreak ratings dip could turn out to be a natural fluctuation that amounts to nothing.” —Megan Basham

CULTURE

“[For over two decades, William Wilberforce] fought tenaciously until the slave trade was finally outlawed. And then he fought for another twenty-five years, despite failing health, for the emancipation of all slaves in 1833. The battle had taken forty-six years. Forty-six years! Today, we are tempted to throw up our hands and go home if we lose a single election. In our campaigns against modern moral evils, we are too easily discouraged; we have forgotten how to persevere. Of course we will have fierce opposition; sometimes the opponents will play dirty, as they did with Wilberforce. But that is no excuse to give up. Who do we think we are working for?… In our own era, the campaign to eliminate the killing of unborn children has already taken thirty-four years. And that is just one battle: Christians are fighting as well modern slavery, embryo-destructive research, and the attack on marriage. We had better take a lesson from Wilberforce (and Wesley) and roll up our sleeves—permanently, if necessary… persevering until the battle is won.” —Chuck Colson

LIBERTY

“Political reforms within the Congress of the United States are hard to come by. But, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that our esteemed lawmakers would agree to three simple limits of their own power—what should they be?… A total elimination of the Income Tax Code is the perfect place to start. Simply put, the income tax is the government’s way of controlling the behavior of businesses and individuals. It is the most complicated and convoluted law that we have in America today, and no one—not even the IRS—fully understands it. Big Business and other interest groups simply understand that they want their piece of the code—and they’re willing to do what it takes to elect the person that will give it to them. Without the code, we’d do away with ‘targeted tax cuts’ that government uses to control behavior. Presidents would not be able to use IRS audits to threaten political opponents as Bill Clinton was accused of doing. Americans would not have to spend more than $250 billion per year in compliance costs. Best of all, the power of Congress to exchange favorable income tax legislation for political contributions would be gone.” —Lynn Woolley

THE GIPPER

“We have to recognize that in this country ‘ideology’ is a scare word. And for good reason. Marxist-Leninism is, to give but one example, an ideology. All the facts of the real world have to be fitted to the Procrustean bed of Marx and Lenin. If the facts don’t happen to fit the ideology, the facts are chopped off and discarded. I consider this to be the complete opposite to principled conservatism. If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free from slavish adherence to abstraction, it is American conservatism.” —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“The [University of Illinois] board of trustees last week eliminated Chief Illiniwek, bowing to years of pressure from Native American activists, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and liberal politicians… The university has been forced to yield to blackmail. The death of the Chief epitomizes some unsavory aspects of contemporary American public life: political correctness, hypocrisy and bureaucratic tyranny. Only a small minority of Native Americans is shown by polls to oppose Indian nicknames in sports. The campaign against them gained momentum only when the NCAA, which can hardly cope with policing athlete misconduct and illegal payments in college sports, crusaded against dozens of colleges in the name of political correctness. The NCAA, under Myles Brand’s presidency, labeled Chief Illiniwek one of the ‘hostile and abusive racial/ethnic/national origin mascots.’… The accusation that Illinois and other schools degrade Native Americans is absurd. These schools picked Indian symbols in admiration of their valor, ferociousness and indomitable spirit in the face of overwhelming odds. Native Americans were honored in naming states. Illinois is Algonquin for ‘tribe of superior men.’ Indiana means the ‘land of the Indians.’ The NCAA originally demanded that the University of Illinois not only dump the Chief but also drop the Fighting Illini nickname. Would Brand next demand that the states of Illinois and Indiana change their names (sticky for the NCAA, which is headquartered in Indianapolis)?” —Robert Novak

GOVERNMENT

“Carl Kruger plans to make a name for himself. Apparently as a nanny. I say ‘plans’ because he made news recently by merely mentioning his intention to push for a new law. I say ‘nanny’ because, well, though he’s a New York state senator, hailing from Brooklyn, his proposal is a great illustration of the term ‘Nanny State.’ He wants to make it an offense to walk across a street while talking on a cellphone or listening to an iPod, or similar devices. You’ve heard of jaywalking? I guess what Kruger objects to could be called iWalking. It’s the job of parents and nannies to tell young children to ‘look both ways,’ and ‘take that out of your ears.’ It’s not the job of governments to tell adults that. By the time you are an adult, you’ve got to just accept some responsibility… Kruger is quoted as saying ‘While people are tuning into their iPods and cell phones, they’re tuning out the world around them.’ Well, sometimes. And Kruger does bring up two tragedies, two recent pedestrian deaths. One happened last month: a 23-year-old man was walking in Bergen Beach, on Avenue T and East 71st. He was hit. And died. It’s a cautionary tale that would be great to publicize. And had the senator just done that, fine. But drawing up a special law for iPods? Well, iBalk.” —Paul Jacob

RE: THE LEFT

“Providing aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime is treason. It’s not ‘just politics.’ It’s treason. And signaling our enemies that Congress wants them to win isn’t ‘supporting our troops.’ The ‘non-binding resolution’ telling the world that we intend to surrender to terrorism and abandon Iraq [was] disgraceful… The vote was a huge morale booster for al Qaeda, for Iraq’s Sunni insurgents, and for the worst of the Shia militias. The message Congress just sent to them all was, ‘Hold on, we’ll stop the surge, we’re going to leave—and you can slaughter the innocent with our blessing.’ We’ve reached a low point in the history of our government when a substantial number of legislators would welcome an American defeat in Iraq for domestic political advantage. … And a word about those troops: It’s going to come as a shock to the massive egos in Congress, but this resolution won’t hurt morale—for the simple reason that our men and women in uniform have such low expectations of our politicians that they’ll shrug this off as business as usual.” —Ralph Peters

POLITICAL FUTURES

“It seems almost pointless to engage in a serious policy debate with a party whose leading contenders for the presidency are willing to simply make up any preposterous national security policy in a contest of one-upmanship targeted at winning the hearts and minds (if that is the word for it) of their party’s ready-for-institutionalizing edge of their lunatic fringe voters. Although, it has to be conceded that such Democratic Party voters may well constitute a majority of their primary voters… Given the fantastic pace and irresponsibility of the Democratic presidential primary campaign, this emerging ‘what me, worry?’ view of the day after we leave [Iraq] probably will quickly become the de rigeur position of even the recently sensible candidates. There appears to be virtually no foolishly dangerous policy proposal that the Democratic presidential candidates will not cheerfully and enthusiastically endorse, if it will keep alive the slightest chance that they may be able to squeeze their backsides into the purple on Jan. 20, 2009. To the voters across the aisle, a warning: Power so irresponsibly sought is not likely to be responsibly exercised.” —Tony Blankley

FOR THE RECORD

“Had the reconstruction of Iraq gone as relatively smoothly as the three-week removal of Saddam, most Democratic candidates would now be heralding their past muscular support for democratic change in Iraq. So instead of self-serving attacks on the present administration, Democratic senators and candidates should simply confess that while most of the earlier reasons to remove Saddam remain valid, the largely unforeseen costs of stabilizing Iraq in their view have proved too high, and now outweigh the dangers of leaving. But they should remember one final consideration. The next time a Democratic administration makes a case for using America’s overwhelming military force to preempt a Milosevic or a mass murderer in Darfur—and history suggests that one will—the Democrats’ own present disingenuous anti-war rhetoric may come back to haunt them, ensuring that such future humanitarian calls will probably fall on ears as deaf as they are partisan.” —Victor Davis Hanson

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Great essay on global warming. Factual and informative. Should be sent to every editorial desk in the nation. Keep up the great work.” —St. Louis, Missouri

“My 6th-grade daughter is working on a team project on global warming and the greenhouse effect. After their indoctrination that global warming and man’s contribution to the greenhouse effect are ‘fact,’ she was assigned to come up with ways man could change and reduce the supposed impact of the greenhouse effect. I challenged her to revisit what she was taught as fact and provided a few counter-examples I knew. Then, lo and behold, I get my Friday Patriot Perspective, which I printed in its entirety for her to use. She now has a very different view of global warming than she had even 48 hours ago. Thanks again for your always-insightful perspective!” —Medina, Ohio

“While The Patriot is absolutely right on the mark on all the issues, this one was exceptionally so on every subject covered, especially regarding Gore’s rants about global warming. Thank you! May truth and light come to our nation at this critical time. Thousands of kudos to our military for their service.” —Des Moines, Washington

“Enjoyed your article on global warming. I especially loved George Will’s quote, which, in one way, echoes what I’ve been saying since the beginning of the debate: Who cares? The climate is always changing either warming or cooling and I look at warming as the lesser of the two evils. I just tell all my liberal friends I am ‘pro-global warming’!” —Roscoe, Illinois

THE LAST WORD

“Headline: ‘Asteroid on Collision Path with Earth’ ‘A group of former astronauts and cosmonauts is warning that at least one asteroid… is on a path that could see it colliding with our planet in 2036. The United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, the group said.’… If you needed any further evidence that the scientists and engineers who met in San Francisco to discuss this asteroid had been smoking some medically-necessary herb, they want the United Nations to do something about it. The United Nations, can not, to this very second, figure out how to get food to starving children in central Africa—which is already ON the planet Earth. Maybe I’m being too harsh, but if the UN takes this up there will be two resolutions: 1. The asteroid will be the fault of Global Warming. 2. The asteroid will be the fault of the United States acting alone (unless Chelsea Clinton is President in 2036 in which case it will have been the fault of George W. Bush).” —Rich Galen

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty, while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)