FAB is indebted to Dr. Frank Joseph for this excellent essay.  Please comment below!

Debating Abortion on the political stage: Carly Fioriana blew it

Carly Fiorina had a golden opportunity to blow Barbara Boxer out of the water in their California senatorial debate, but she blew it.

An abortion question was asked by a member of the panel, and of course, Boxer went according to script. Said Boxer (paraphrasing and making it short), “I am for a woman’s right to choose.” Never saying the word abortion. “Women shouldn’t have to go to jail if Roe v Wade is overturned, and that’s what Fiorina wants.”

To begin with, this is a lie. Women would not go to jail. They didn’t before Roe and they won’t if Roe is overturned. Democrats just have to lie, just like they did in the 1960s when they said that 5,000 – 10,000 women died every year from back-alley, coat-hanger abortions. Even NARAL founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson now admints that it was a willful lie. The year before Roe, only 39 such deaths were reported to the CDC. Anyhow, only the person who kills the child (the abortion doctor) would be breaking the law and put in jail if Roe is overturned.

Fiorina did not call Boxer on this lie. She did say she is pro-life, but she never mentioned that Boxer not only supports the killing of unborn children, she supports this killing for the entire nine months of pregnancy. She even supports partial-birth abortions, which 75% of the American people oppose. According to polls, more people identify themselves as pro-life than pro-choice (to kill unborn children).

They each had 2 minutes for their final summations. In her statement, Boxer again brought up a woman’s “right to choose” and again falsely stated women would go to jail if Fiorina had her way and Roe was overturned. She kept pounding on that issue.

It seems that when Democrats are in a debate, they go for the throat. Maybe Republicans just don’t want to hurt the feelings of Democrats. I think they just don’t get it.

Fiorina should have mentioned that Boxer lied about women going to jail if Roe is overturned. She should have also said that women who do not have their child killed would decrease their risk of getting breast cancer and decrease their risk of drug and alcohol abuse as well as suicides.

She could have even mentioned that abortions increase the risk of premature babies in subsequent pregnancies, resulting in low birth weights. Such children are more prone to develop physical and mental problems, including cerebral palsy.

She could also have said that she favor’s a woman’s reproductive rights, but when reproduction is over, that is where she draws the line. She could have mentioned that Boxer even supported killing babies while they are being born, at which time they would suffer excruciating pain. As Boxer repeated over and over again what little ammunition she had, Fiorina should have mentioned this over and over again. Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire.

Can you tell the difference between a Republican, an old-line Democrat, and a Progressive Democrat?  As the election approaches, it’s important to know.

• When a Republican wants to buy your vote, he pulls money out of his own pocket.  Maybe a pint of whiskey.
• When an old-line Democrat wants to buy your vote, he sticks his hand in your pocket and promises, “I will fight to get you your fair share.”
• A Progressive Democrat grabs your money from the old Democrat, borrows even more from the Chinese, and sends the bill to your children.

Kristan Hawkins, Director, Students for Life of America

You know about our Pro Life on Campus (GAP) display.  We have displayed this project more than 150 times on major college campuses all over the USA.  But we do more than that.

Today, pro-life college students have flocked to Knoxville to learn how to be more effective on their own campuses.  Peggy English of Silent No More has just wrapped up her talk.  I’ll be speaking later this morning about the history of social reform.

Social reformers of history used images to show the humanity of the victim and the horrifying nature of the crime.  They confronted the culture.  They were willing to accept persecution.  I will be showing students how they can put these principles to work on campus.

We are indebted to Shirley Moore of Knoxville for this excellent essay.

They were accused of disturbing the peace in the churches, a peace [William Lloyd] Garrison did not believe they were entitled to enjoy.

Are you an extremist?

Extremists, self-righteous, judgmental, violent (or the cause of violence). These terms, familiar to pro-lifers, were also applied to the 19th Century abolitionists, and most particularly to William Lloyd Garrison, the editor of the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. He renewed an anti-slavery movement that had languished during the first part of the 19th Century and agitated against slavery from 1829 until it was abolished at the time of the Civil War.

Because he challenged the core morality of the US and because he never lost sight of the moral issues (the sanctity of life, the equality of the races, and the obligation of Christians to oppose slavery), he was hated, mocked in newspapers, and persecuted throughout his life. However, he had a loving family and loyal circle of friends.

After a century and half, at least one book has given him his just due: All On Fire by Henry Mayer. Mayer is a veteran of the 60s-era Civil Rights Movement. Few books have been written about Garrison because the image of him as a “holier-than-thou nut” has persisted to this day. He put justice above peace and has never been forgiven by the culture he challenged.

As many pro-lifers experience today, the churches of the 19th Century despised abolitionists. They were perhaps “too” Christian for the men and women in the pews. They were accused of disturbing the peace in the churches, a peace Garrison did not believe they were entitled to enjoy. Like many pro-lifers, they were “outsiders” in their own congregations and parishes.

Sometimes, being effective and being liked are incompatible.  In social reform movements, this is almost always the case.  Which will  you choose?

1. Republicans controlled Congress during the so-called “Clinton surplus.”  It was the first Republican majority in more than 40  years and the first budget surplus in more than 25 years.
2. The Democrats had controlled Congress for two years leading up to the 2008 economic crisis.  They helped create the deficit that Pres. Obama “inherited”, and would have made it bigger if they could have.
3. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in The Obama Economy, Bush essentially governed like a Democrat during the economic crisis of 2008, cooperating with their efforts to throw away billion$ on bailouts and stimulus packages.
4. The current economic policies are merely a continuation of the policies that got us in this mess in the first place.
5. Sowell says that if we are going to talk about “the policies that created this mess in the first place,” let’s at least get the facts straight and the names right.

But I should point out that Sowell missed a few facts that are also important.  First, there was no such thing as a Clinton surplus.  The so-called budget surplus of the mid-1990s was a surplus only if you include as revenue the money that was stolen out of the Social Security fund.  If you count it as borrowed money that has to be returned one day, the government was still running a deficit.

Second, Sowell was entirely correct that the mortgage lending crisis was created by Democrats, although it was implemented in full view of Republicans who did too little to stop them.  The mortgage crisis was like gasoline thrown on the fire of economic crisis of 2008, but there were other factors that must be remembered and corrected:

1. The ultimate cause of the economic conflagration was the widespread belief that this economic gravy train—25+ years of Reagan-Bush recovery—would never end.  This belief caused people throw caution to the wind.  They took on way too much debt to buy bigger and bigger houses and other stuff they didn’t need and couldn’t afford.  Lenders lent money to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back.  Corporations focused on short-term profits at the expense of long-term stability.  It’s very tempting to throw your money around at the casino if you get the stupid idea that the game won’t let you lose.
2. The sudden spike in world oil prices in the summer of 2008 was the match that lit the fire.  Suddenly, industries sensitive to oil prices had to cut back, the effects of which rippled through the economy.  People and corporations were way too extended, so they were vulnerable and fearful.  They panicked.  They cut back.  People’s incomes shrank.  They lost jobs and houses.  You know the rest.
3. In 2008, it became apparent that big-government socialists might occupy all three branches of government.  The leading candidate for the White House was preaching bigger and more expensive government, along with dramatic tax increases.  This caused many job-producers to keep their money on the sidelines.  People just will not risk their money in the face of such uncertainty.
4. Finally, it is going to take time to ease the panic and correct the excesses.  According to the Wall Street Journal, credit excesses built up over many years have to be wound down, and that takes time, while banks have to work down their bad assets.

But hopefully, people are beginning to learn some of the lessons of unchecked government spending.  Check out this column by Hugh Hewitt.  He describes how young teachers in California are being punished by a system that pays extravagant benefits to retired teachers, leaving too little for the teachers still on the job.  Raising taxes is no longer an option.  “The present is very much being sacrificed to the excess of the past.”  It’s another kind of excess that will take years to correct.

But not to worry.  In his piece Obama’s Shrinking Presidency, Columist Richard Cohen tells us exactly what Pres. Obama needs to do that will fix all of this.  He says, “The president needs better speechwriters.”  Well, there you have it!

Whatever happened the the Christian faith? Is something horrific going on?

What does CNN and Princeton Theological Seminary know about the Church that we don’t?  Actually, quite a lot? Check these out:

• “Fake” Christianity.  CNN reports on research by Kenda Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, who says that “your child is following a ‘mutant’ form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.”  According to Dean, it’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost self-esteem.  Disclaimer: I haven’t read her book Almost Christian so I don’t know what kind of gospel she is selling—I seek spiritual advice only from those who accept the Bible, in it’s original text, as the inerrant Word of God—but I believe she’s onto something with her diagnosis.  What do you think?
• Incredibly inarticulate.  A World Magazine article mentions the work of UNC Chapel Hill sociology professor Christian Smith.  Smith, who has since taken a position at Notre Dame, found that many evangelical teenagers know little about Christianity.  Based on interviews with some 267 teenagers, Smith found that the majority of teenagers who identified themselves as evangelicals were “incredibly inarticulate” about their religious beliefs. “They were well-trained in the dangers of drunk driving and STDs,” he said, but they fumbled on basic questions about Christianity.
• False conversion.  I believe all of this must be related to the phenomenon of “false conversion.”  Let me encourage  you to listen to two sermons by Ray Comfort: (1) Hell’s Best Kept Secret and (2) True and False Conversion.  What do you think?

What do you think?  I can’t wait to read your comments!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK3zs7EV6Tk

Speaking before the House Judiciary Committee of the 104th Tennessee General Assembly, State Representative Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) defines eco-terrorism, PETA, and left-wing eco-greenie wackos (which are sort of like fire-ants).

Note: the cartoon explosions and animal sound effects have been added after-the-fact.  Pigs and cows won’t come into the State Captial building when politicians are present.  I think they can’t stand the smell.

I just love Tennessee.

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

My good friend Stacey Campfield wondered why conservatives are called the “right” and liberals are called the “left.”  He found the answer in the Bible, of course:

“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”  (Ecclesiastes 10:2)

Training prepares students to articulate and respectfully defend the pro-life position.

CBR Southeast announces a new page on Facebook that will focus on our pro-life apologetics training.

Our Pro Life Training Academy (PLTA) is an ourtreach primarily to Christian/pro-life college and high-school students, but even experienced activists will benefit from the training.

Pro-life youth are a critical group because they are the future leaders of the movement. More immediately, they wield enormous influence on their peers, particularly when they are trained and equipped.

Please go “Like” our new page at www.facebook.com/ProLifeTraining.

A full-day seminar prepares the student to articulate and respectfully defend the pro-life position, even before hostile audiences. Role-playing exercises allow the student to practice for real-life encounters.  For students ready to take the next step, CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) provides a unique opportunity for on-the-job training (www.facebook.com/ProLifeOnCampus).

In addition to the training pro-life advocates, the PLTA unites pro-lifers behind common goals of education, training, and outreach. Community pro-life advocates host, promote, and participate in the training. Target audiences include college pro-life groups, Church youth groups, Christian high schools, pro-life agencies, and pro-life volunteers.

CBR and the local community stakeholders work jointly to fund community-wide training.

Here is Dr. Alveda King speaking at the Jefferson Memorial at the Restoring Honor Rally on August 28, 2010.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtNscI-DiQI

You can watch the entire rally here.  Glenn Beck said early media reports indicated that “over a thousand” people were in attendance!

I wanted to share with you two op-ed pieces by Charles Krauthammer.  Well worth the read.

• The last refuge of a liberal – The theme of the column is summed up in two words near the end, “undisguised contempt”.
• It’s nonsense to say the U.S. is ungovernable – The Left’s contempt for American institutions.

Restoring Honor Rally at the Lincoln Memorial

I was at the National Mall Saturday.  It was a huge crowd, much larger than the “tens of thousands” reported by the MSM.  I’ve been to many football games at the U of Tennessee, so I know what 100,000 people looks like.

For comparison purposes, I saw a photo (on the world-wide-interwebs) of an Obama election rally at the Gateway Arch  (St. Louis), which was reported to be 100,000 people.  I looked at areal shots of both venues (National Mall and Gateway Arch) at the same scale.  The Beck crowd was many times larger in size, although perhaps not as dense in some areas.  My best guess is 300,000 or more were there Saturday.  No way the crowd was smaller than 200,000.  I wouln’t scoff if you told me 500,000.

The remarkable thing about the crowd Saturday is that the rally got very little pre-publicity, except on Beck’s TV and radio shows.  I’m on a bunch of e-mail lists and I frequently get appeals to do this or that, especially when somebody is trying to drive up numbers.  I never once got an e-mail to come to the Lincoln Memorial.  (I was there because I just happened to be in DC last week.)  I wouldn’t have known about it if my wife hadn’t told me about it, so I was shocked to see so many people.

More important than attendance was the actual message.  More on that later.

Pastor Cecil Clark of True Vine Baptist Church outside an abortion clinic in Knoxville.

“Would you look at that?” he said, as we stood on the U of Louisville campus. Pastor Dave Daubenmire and I watched as professional pro-aborts desperately denied the truth staring them in the face.  The students weren’t buying it.

“Every time Christians show up with the truth, we win.”  But then Pastor Dave hit me where it hurts, “The only problem is, we Christians usually don’t show up.” 

Jesus said the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18), but can we really apply that verse when the Church does nothing?

The biggest example of this is abortion. We have abortion in American because the “pro-life” church isn’t showing up. I’m not talking about the churches that are officially pro-abortion.  I’m talking about just the churches you and I attend.

If you are reading this, you probably attend a church that claims to be “pro-life.”  But is it really?  An easy test to perform:

1. Go to the nearest abortion clinic when the killing is going on.  Count the number of your pastors/elders/church leaders that show up.
2. Go to the next meeting of any pro-life endeavor in your community and count the number of your pastors/elders/church leaders that show up.
3. Take a look at the budget of your church and add up the money spent on stopping abortion. Then add up the money spent on church-run sports programs. Then add up the money spent on making the music better on Sunday morning. If you add it up all over Knoxville, where I live, it will be a few thousand dollars to stop abortion, hundreds of thousands to run sports programming, and millions of dollars on the Sunday morning music. I’m not knocking music or sports, but I am wondering why full-time professionals are hired to run sports and music programs in almost every major church, but almost zero staff time is ever devoted to help stop killing babies.  That despite the fact that approximately 1 in 5 women who aborts her baby identifies herself as a “born-again” or “evangelical” Christian.
4. Take a look at the required core education curriculum of your church. It has to be on paper (or online) or it doesn’t count. Look for the mandated requirements for teaching middle and high-school students about abortion. Are there any such requirements? No? Then is it any wonder why so many of our children have abortions?
5. As you evaluate the pro-life education requirements at your church, find out if photos/videos of aborted babies are mandated as part of the published curriculum. We hear from the students who grew up in “pro-life” churches all the time.  Just recently, two student government leaders at Liberty University told me they were not commited pro-lifers until I showed them pictures of abortion.  The “pro-life” church had hidden the truth from them, and they had never known nor cared because they had never seen.

So, is your church “pro-life”?  What are you going to do about it?

What would Jesus do?

P.S.  A pastor recently told me that his church “works through” the local CPC that some of their members helped to start 20 years ago. Not sure what that means, but I do know it ain’t much. They were not interested in doing anything more.  I can tell you that babies are dying in that church, but the pastor believes that their only responsibility to those babies is to send a few dollars to a pregnancy center across town.  If I ever have a heart attack, I hope I’m not sitting in that church!

Baby saved at the University of Tennessee.

We are pleased to announce that a generous donor is willing to match your gift to CBR-SE / Pro Life on Campus.  Not once.  Not twice.  But three times!

3-FOR-1 MATCHING PROGRAM!

That means for every $1 you provide, we receive $4 to save babies and moms.

Here’s how it works.  When you sign up for an automatic monthly gift, our anonymous donor will match your first month’s gift—his $3 for every $1 you commit.  Example: you give $60/month, our donor gives $180 today!  Your $60 puts $240 to work saving babies and moms, right now!  No gift will go unmatched; your $10 puts $40 to work!  Please give now, before our donor goes broke and it’s too late!   Here’s the page link.  Then hit “Monthly DONATION” and provide the requested information over our secure connection. 

Please pass this along to all your pro-life friends.  If you care about saving babies and moms, this deal is too good to miss.