What if Mary and Joseph were on Facebook?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reMq5fM874k

Great video from CNN’s TEDTalk (link here).

For more information on prenatal development, check out www.EHD.org.

A police officer threw these signs into the street at Aberdeen (Maryland) High School.

Outside a high school in Maryland, a police officer seized pro-life signage and threw the signs into a public street, creating a traffic hazard.

One morning each week, CBR Maryland Director Kurt Linnemann and a few volunteers take CBR GAP and Choice signs to a nearby high school.  We call it our School “Choice” Project.  (You can do this in your community; we can help.) 

After unloading the signs at Aberdeen High School on the morning of November 18, Linnemann drove his van to a nearby parking lot.  When he returned, he was stunned to see an Aberdeen police officer throwing the signs out into the street.  Linnemann immediately requested that the officer summon his supervisor to the scene.

Shortly thereafter, a police supervisor arrived, along with other officers and the Aberdeen HS principal.  The officers huddled with the principal and got on their phones to see if CBR was on public property or school property.   After about 30 minutes, they all quietly departed the scene, and CBR continued to display the signs.

Following the incident, Linnemann drove to the Aberdeen Police Department and filed a formal complaint against the officer.

There are lessons to be learned in this:

1. Before picketing any street location, do your homework in the city and/or county planning office to determine exact property and right-of-way lines.  Carry your maps with you.  We faced the same question at Liberty University and the maps settled the question.  It’s a waste of time to stand on the street corner and argue with people who have no idea where the property and right-of-way boundaries actually lie.
2. Before arriving at a location, notify the police of your plans and offer a meeting.  Take your maps with you.  Negotiate all the details, including where, when, how, etc.  Ask that the applicable patrol officers be notified of the activity.
3. ALWAYS videotape your work.  Assign a video camera to at least one person, preferably two.  We sometimes put the camera on a tripod and place it under the protection of a nearby tree.  You can even get cameras that mount on your person (link here).  Voice recorders are also an inexpensive way to establish the facts of what was said to whom.
4. NEVER defy a police order, even if you disagree with the police.  When we are asked to leave an area, we say, “We will certainly obey your directive, but may I ask by what law compels us to leave?”  And then, “OK, may I have your name, please?”  Settle the matter in court later, appealing to people who know the law; do not attempt to settle the matter on the street, with people who do not know the law.  Your position in court is much stronger as the plaintiff in a civil action than as a defendant in a criminal action.

Signs on display at Aberdeen (Maryland) High School

Signs on display at Aberdeen (Maryland) High School

Strategic pro-life activism means being at the right place, at the right time, with the right message.  That’s what we do at CBR.

A decisive blow for ObamaCare and other pro-abortion legislation in the US Senate was delivered in the state of Virginia, way back in 2006.  In November of that year, the pro-abortion candidate won a seat in the US Senate by fewer than 10,000 votes.  Had just 5,000 voters switched from pro-abortion to pro-life (just over 2 voters/precinct), then the pro-life candidate would have won in 2006 and ObamaCare would have been rejected in 2009.  Remember the midnight vote in the US Senate two years ago?

Just as Virginia was key to the pro-abort victories of 2009-2010, it is also key to undoing the damage in 2013-2014.  Don’t take our word for it.  Listen to the pro-life former Senator from Virginia, George Allen:

Virginia’s key.  Our U.S. Senate race here in Virginia is one that objective observers say is crucial.  If we win Virginia, the Republicans, the conservatives, take over the majority in the U.S. Senate and everyone recognizes that whoever wins the presidency, they need to win Virginia.

That’s why CBR is focused like a laser on expanding pro-life activism in Virginia and other key states.  CBR can’t endorse any particular candidate or party, of course, but we can put abortion on the election-year agenda by forcing people to see what abortion is and does.

Abortion advocates and their allies in the media portray pro-life candidates as “extreme,” “arch-conservative,” “right-wing,” etc., but they portray pro-abortion candidates as “moderate.”  By helping us take abortion pictures to Virginia, we can show young people that killing babies is an extremist act of terror, whereas saving babies is a rational act of compassion.

In 2011, we took GAP to 3 major universities in Virginia.  We started 2 new pro-life clubs on campus.  These students will constantly remind their classmates that abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby.  We have invitations to take our GAP project to George Mason U and Virginia Commonwealth U in the Spring.  But we can’t do it without your help.  Please help us show voters in Virginia that voting for abortion is absolute evil.  Click here to join us!  No gift is too small; no gift is too large!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEcFozPm3KM

Thought you might enjoy reading this poem, My Little Baby Boy, which is dedicated to our work on campus!  This is part of Family Friend Poem’s “We Care” program!

We are sometimes criticized for writing about the economy, freedom, etc., on these pages.  Best to focus on pro-life issues, they say.

There is some merit in that assertion.  In our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA), we teach pro-life activists how to convince even atheists and communists that abortion is wrong.  Even if they believe we are wrong about politics, economics, etc., that does not justify killing a child.

But it’s important for us to understand how saving children is related to saving the economy.

Over the past 50 years, a deadly idea has been growing in the collective American psyche:  the notion that all of us are “entitled” to whatever we need, and sometimes even what we want, and we have no responsibility to work for it or pay for it.  The list of “entitlements” includes food, shelter, health care, a college education, etc., … and the list is growing.

Entitlement, along with its twin monster Dependency, are cultivated and used by political charlatans as tools for obtaining and consolidating political power.  They make outrageous promises, but of course, those promises must be kept by somebody else (i.e., the productive class), if they can be kept at all.  But it really doesn’t matter if they can be kept or not, because the people on the receiving end are “entitled.”

As to paying for the promises?  Well, somebody else can worry about that tomorrow.

Couple that general sense of entitlement with the non-stop portrayal of free sex on TV, in movies, at school, etc.  Everybody is having sex, nobody gets pregnant, and nobody gets STDs.  In the popular culture, sex is just an expected part of teenage life.  So it’s easy to see how young males would think sex without responsibility is just one more item on their long list of “entitlements.”  All a boy has to do is get a girl to give in to his “request,” and when she does, it’s all good.

Since contraception so often fails or is simply forgotten (source), recourse to abortion is necessary for having sex without responsibility, so abortion must be a “right” as well.  They will even say it, “But if I agree with you about abortion, I’ll have to give up sex!”  Not necessarily, but they might have to accept responsibility, and of course, responsibility is antithetical to entitlement.

Some are more callous than others, “Yep, my girlfriend has the right to kill my child, and I’ll do anything in my power to make sure she does, but the ultimate guilt … er, decision … is hers!”

The more we promote the entitlement philosophy, the more abortions we will have.  The politicians who work hardest to cultivate entitlement/dependency also promote the most extreme child-killing policies, because responsibility and entitlement are incompatible values.

Conversely, although the 2010 elections were not a pro-life mandate, per se, but rather a mandate to roll back entitlements gone wild, the result was a record number of pro-life laws passed at the state level in 2011.  Many of the newly-elected lawmakers who promised fiscal sanity also worked to protect children and moms from abortion.

Furthermore, we must always remind ourselves that the first order of business for the political class is to stay in power.  That means paying off powerful political allies like Planned Parenthood.  They tell us our money will go for food, shelter, education, health care, etc., for people who need it.  But in reality, they take money from the productive class and use much of it to grow the bureacracy and pay off their political friends.

You know about Solyndra, but the half-billion they got is chump change.  Planned Parenthood stands to take in billions of dollars (that’s “billions” with a “b”) annually from ObamaCare (source).  (Annually means every year, for all you people in Rio Linda.)  The more we feed the beast that is our federal government, the more entitlement, dependency, and abortions we will have.

What do you think?  Please comment!

Great column in the National Review Online (NRO) by Mark Steyn.  I’m currently reading Steyn’s latest book, After America.  Scary, to say the least.

For the full NRO piece, click here.  Leave your comments below!

Highlights:

Broke nations are being bailed out by a broke transnational organization bankrolled by a broke superpower in order to save a broke currency.  Good luck with that.

***

The “you’re not on your own” societal model of Western Europe has run out of people to stick it to.

***

America “invests” more per student than any other nation except Switzerland, and it has nothing to show for it other than a vast swamp of mediocrity presided over by a hideous educrat monopoly.

***

These are dangerous times — and, as many will discover, whatever assurances the statists give, in the end you’ll be on your own.

For the full piece, click here.  Check out Steyn’s new book, After America.  I’m reading it now.  It’s scary, but you need to know what’s going on.

Please comment below and/or on Facebook!

Interesting op-ed in the National Review asks the question, “Are Evangelicals or University Professors More Irrational?”

At the same time, the opposite position — the position of nearly the entire liberal intellectual world, that everyone’s sexual orientation is fixed — is also driven by ideology rather than by science. Society has a huge influence on how people act out their sexuality, including the sex with whom they choose to be sexual. Human sexuality — especially that of the human female — is far more elastic than the intellectual community admits. And the widespread liberal belief that, all things being equal, it makes no difference if a child is raised by a mother and father or by two fathers or two mothers is hardly rational. On the issue of homosexuality, the intellectual Left is just as driven by ideology as are evangelicals.

***

If you disagree with race-based affirmative action, you are a racist; disagree with the ever-expanding welfare state, you lack compassion; disagree with redefining marriage in the most radical way ever attempted in history, and you are a hater.

Entire article here.

As I watch this … now for the 30th time … I can’t help but wonder what the prophet Handel might think if he could see it. How could he imagine this scene, half a world and 269 years away, as he worked day and night in the summer of 1741 to set God’s Word to music?

Who knows what God will do with the work He has given each of us to complete?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

As you may know, the prophet Handel is generally credited with writing Messiah, the Musical, but he actually plagiarized most of the lyrics. For example, he copied some of its most memorable lines from another prophet, a guy named Isaiah, who lived in the 700’s BC. For example, Isaiah wrote these lines:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isa. 7:14)

For unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6)

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isa. 53:3-6)

Anybody can write about a person who has already lived and events that have already happened. The eternal beauty of Handel’s Messiah is that so much of it was written hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Only God can do that. Check this out.

(Note:  If cable TVcan put Star Trek re-runs on TV, FAB can put up re-runs here.)

GAP sign at the Christmas Parade in Fredericksburg, Va. (All you Tennessee fans will note the Power T's in the background.)

CBR volunteer and pro-life activist Jonathan Darnel put abortion on display at the Christmas Parade in Fredericksburg, Va. on December 4.

A pro-life mother was escorting about 8 boys (members of a little league team), each between 9-11 years of age.  The kids were shocked to see what an abortion looked like, and expressed concern both for the unborn and born victim depicted on the sign.  They asked, “Why did the parents do something like that?”

We can answer that question with two words: ignorance and selfishness.  Some parents abort because they don’t know that the preborn child really is a baby, even in the first trimester.  That’s why our pictures are so important.  Others abort because they are selfish and don’t care.  Our pictures are not nearly so effective with such people.

You too can order GAP signs and also “Choice” signs from CBR and put them on display in your own community!

Obama on Capitalism (source):

… there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

Friedman on Capitalism:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

In 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville (perhaps channeling his inner George Will) wondered what despotism in a republic such as ours might look like:

I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. …

Over these is elevated an immense, tutelary power, which takes sole charge of assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute, attentive to detail, regular, provident, and gentle. It would resemble the paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in childhood … it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs, guides them in their principal affairs….

The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers its surface with a network of petty regulations—complicated, minute, and uniform—through which even the most original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way … it does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s own … it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Welcome to 2011.  How did he know?  He wrote this in his famous work, Of Democracy in America.  Why is this not required reading for every American school child?  Anwer:  Because educated, thinking, freedom-loving citizens are antithetical to the Number One goal of the political class, which is to consolidate political power, that’s why.

Last week, George Will (perhaps channeling his inner Tocqueville) wrote an excellent column, Choking on ObamaCare:

Time was, American businesses could surmount such regulatory officiousness. But government’s metabolic urge to boss people around has grown exponentially and today CKE’s California restaurants are governed by 57 categories of regulations.  (Click here for entire column.)

How did Tocqueville know?

BTW, we picked up the Tocqueville quote from Mark Steyn’s excellent new book, After America.

When Anna speaks, students take notes.

This is how pro-life activism on campus should work.  For a few hours every week, pro-life student Anna Maher takes an abortion photo out into the center of campus at George Mason University (GMU).  She works with Jonathan Darnel, CBR volunteer and pro-life activist in the DC area.  Anna e-mailed me recently:

[We] have started to do Pro-Life outreach every Monday (and now Friday) at GMU, in the center of campus. We usually have a big sign with graphics, or a message, and ask passers-by what they think.  Let me tell you…it is moving…truly the best part of my week.  Through this outreach I have gained several emails, of mostly GMU students, who are willing to give their support.  I e-mail them every week and let them know of outreach at GMU and of the status of Students For Life …

Pray that God uses her to help me open doors; for my resources are quickly running dry.  Please, Please PRAY! …

Find some time to relax during this special Christmas season and remember who started this all: the Lord Jesus Christ!  Thank you for all you do, and for finding me at GMU last summer.  This has all changed my life.

The future of the pro-life movement.  Anna is saving babies and moms at GMU, but God is at work in her life as well.  I thank Him for young people like Anna.  She will play a key part in overturning Roe v Wade.

Pro-life at GMU on the rise!  A few days after sending this e-mail, Anna called to say that she had found a new faculty sponsor for GMU Students for Life (SFL).  CBR actually started the GMU SFL back in 2003, but the leadership waned and the faculty advisor retired, so there hadn’t been any pro-life activism in a couple of years.  Until now.  It looks like we are back on track at GMU.  This is all part of our strategy to elevate pro-life activism in important swing states like Virginia.

No discrimination against pro-life students is allowed.  The faculty sponsor is important because the rules generally mandate that a student group find one as a condition of “recognition” (i.e., equal access to university facilities).  However, whether the university administrators realize it or not, the courts would never allow such rules to deny equal access for unpopular groups who simply cannot find a faculty sponsor.  Such policies, as written, give university employees (i.e., faculty members) veto power over free speech and equal access.  Even Clinton appointees wouldn’t allow that kind of discrmination.  And we’ll be happy to prove it in court, if it ever comes to that.

Anna Maher reaches students at George Mason University with a GAP sign provided by CBR.

Nicole Cooley speaks with a student at Liberty University.

Nicole Cooley, CBR’s Virginia Project Director, spoke to the pro-life student group at Liberty University last night.  She described her experience with rape and abortion and spent another hour answering questions and speaking with students.

One student wanted to know how to help his girlfriend, who is post-abortive from a previous relationship.

Another student wanted to know about our use of pictures at the entrances to the campus back in August.  He asked how Christians can do more to end abortion, which is exactly the question we hoped to stimulate with our GAP appearance.  Nicole stressed that if we can’t get Christians to care about abortion, we have no hope of ever ending it.

She also spoke to the  issue of how Christian women can feel pressured to abort if they are condemned and punished for getting pregnant out of wedlock.  Notice that men never have to face this.  The irony here is that the sexual revolution was sold to America as an emancipator of women.  In practice, women are pressured to have sex.  Women become pregnant.  Women are threatened with expulsion from school.  In many cases, women bear the more severe symptoms of STDs.  “Men” get sex without responsibility and then they try to transfer their own guilt to the mothers of their own children by saying, “It’s a women’s issue.”  Yeah, right.

Pro-life students told Nicole that we had a huge impact on Liberty when we brought GAP early this semester.  Students were talking about abortion a lot for a month after we were there, and they still talk about it now, months later.  Even though many of them were angry at us, we still succeeded in making abortion a significant and ongoing topic of discussion on campus.  Mission accomplished.

We agree with Martin Luther King.  We don’t care what people think about us; we care what they think about injustice.  Read my letter to Liberty University here.

Great new Christmas song from Becky Kelley!  Story behind the song here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OExXItDyWEY