15 Reasons ‘Marriage Equality’ Is About Neither Marriage Nor Equality

Same-sex marriage is a notion that contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. I doubt many have thought this through, with the ironic exception of the elites who have been pushing the agenda the hardest. --Most people are weary of it all and going along to get along, especially since dissent has become such a socially expensive proposition, almost overnight. That in itself should deeply concern anyone who values freedom of expression.

Read more at The Federalist
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Unfair, Unjust, Privileged, Politically Incorrect Bedtime Stories

From time to time, a news story will pop up somewhere that perfectly illustrates the demonstrable damage that political correctness (and the liberal definition of equality) has caused to conventional wisdom and society as a whole. Such a story presented itself this week when a man named Adam Swift, a British academic and described philosopher, offered his thoughts on the societal unfairness created when parents read bedtime stories to their children. --Yes, bedtime stories.

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The prescience of Pat Moynihan

In the mid-1960s, a social scientist noted something ominous that came to be called “Moynihan’s Scissors”: Two lines on a graph crossed, replicating a scissors’ blades. ✧ The descending line charted the decline in the minority male unemployment rate. The ascending line charted the simultaneous rise of new welfare cases. ✧ The broken correlation of improvements in unemployment and decreased welfare dependency shattered confidence in social salvation through economic growth and reduced barriers to individual striving.

Read more at the New York Post
(Hat tip: KimR) Read More......

Sen. Mike Lee on Fighting for Equal Opportunity

FOUNDRY, by Sen Mike Lee (R-Utah) - “In this present crisis,” Ronald Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” These words, though they inspired a generation of conservatives, almost sound quaint today. ✧ Government of course remains the problem, but the nature of that problem has evolved dramatically since Reagan’s first inaugural. If Republicans want to grow their party into a national majority, we must begin, as Reagan did in 1981, by confronting our present crisis: America’s large and growing Opportunity Deficit, namely, immobility among the poor and insecurity in the middle class. ✧ Compounding the shortage of opportunities among the poor and middle class is an unholy union of big government, big business, and big special interests that twists public policy to benefit Washington insiders unfairly at the expense of everyone else.

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Charles Koch: I'm Fighting to Restore a Free Society

Op-Ed by Charles G. Koch - Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It is those principles—the principles of a free society—that have shaped my life, my family, our company and America itself. Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government. That's why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.

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Republicans passed the first Civil Rights Act ever, in 1866

Grand Old Partisan, 8/9/2013, by Michael Zak - On this day one hundred and forty-seven years ago, the Republican-controlled 39th Congress enacted the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Nearly unanimously, Republican Representatives and Senators voted to override a veto by the Democrat president, Andrew Johnson. This was the first time Congress overrode a presidential veto of a significant bill. ✧ Senator Lyman Trumbull (R-IL) wrote the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which conferred U.S. citizenship on former slaves and other African-Americans. The law granted African-Americans "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens." Republicans thereby accorded African-Americans the right to own property, engage in business, sign contracts and file lawsuits. ✧ Also, the 1866 Civil Rights Act contradicted the notorious Dred Scott decision, in which the seven Democrat Justices on the Supreme Court decreed that black people did not have constitutional rights. To prevent Democrats from someday repealing the Act, Republicans later enshrined its provisions as Article I of the 14th Amendment. ✧ Sadly, Democrats defied the 1866 Civil Rights Act and other Republican reforms. Democrat oppression of African-Americans would not be overcome until the 1960's civil rights movement.

Michael Zak is the author of Back to Basics for the Republican Party and blogs as the Grand Old Partisan, celebrating the heritage of the Republican Party. Read More......

Free or Equal - A personal view by Johan Norberg

Program Summary: "In 1980 economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman inspired market reform in the West and revolutions in the East with his celebrated television series “Free To Choose.” ✧ Thirty years later, in this one-hour documentary, the young Swedish writer, analyst and Cato Foundation Fellow Johan Norberg travels in Friedman’s footsteps to see what has actually happened in the places Friedman’s ideas helped transform. In location after location Norberg examines the contemporary relevance or Friedman’s ideas in the 2011 world of globalization and financial crisis. Central to his examination are the perennial questions concerning power and prosperity, and the trade-offs between individual liberty and income equality." ✧ Watch the 17-minute video preview at Free to Choose Media. Read More......

Friedman vs. Piven

"In this clip from the 1980 Free To Choose, socialist Frances Fox Piven tangles with Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. We thought this would be interesting in light of the recent dustup between The New York Times and Fox News (Glenn Beck) on the subject of Piven." --FreeToChooseNetwork Read More......