Religious Freedom and Hilary Clinton

I have deep held religious beliefs that are based upon the Bible. These are being challenged by Hillary Clinton who says I do not have the right to these beliefs. The following article shows the truth of what her statement means to me, a Bible believer.

I want to be as brief as possible. This is about Hillary and her statement that is being whitewashed for the masses. That simply means that her controversial statement of religions will have to change their beliefs is not being reported by the major media because of how it would effect her campaign.

I searched long and hard for the transcript of her speech at the “World Women Conference.” Sadly, the mainstream media paraphrased much of the speech and left that portion out. It is on “youtube.” Some one has taken the time to put it on paper in context. I have watched and listened to the speech and the context and believe she is calling for a change in religious beliefs being mandated. She wants to tell you what to believe.

MRC Newsbusters have this as her comment – Yes, we’ve cut the material mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth. All the laws we pass don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper.

Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I – (Applause) as I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century, and not just for women but for everyone, and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.

Do not believe this is in context go to youtube and type in “Hillary – Womens World Conference.”

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air said this – David Gibson suggested this might be Hillary Clinton’s “clinging to guns and religion” moment, and he may be right — assuming she survives the corruption scandals in the first place. Last night, Hillary told the Women in the World Summit that the path to Abortion Nirvana will only open up by changing religion, culture, and values to accommodate it:

“Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper,” Clinton said.

“Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she explained. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.”

In one sense, this shows just how extreme the pro-abortion caucus actually is. As Hillary admits here — albeit unwittingly — the at-will destruction of the unborn goes against religious beliefs, long-held cultural values, and the structural “biases” that exist to recognize the value of human life. That’s what the “clump of cells” fallacy has to overcome, and as Hillary and the Left have discovered, it’s a tall order. And it’s not just abortion, but also same-sex marriage and forced participation in it, euthanasia dressed up as “right to die” movements, and the rest.

 

Kirsten Powers who is a liberal wrote on April 29^th, 2015 in USA Today, a liberal paper – This darn world just won’t stop clinging to religion.

But Hillary Clinton is on the case. At last week’sWomen in the World Summit, Clinton explained to her high-end Manhattan audience that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” regarding “reproductive health care.” She was talking about both the United States and unnamed “far-away countries.”

If Clinton is going to complain about cultural codes, perhaps she should dispense with the “reproductive health care” euphemism and just say “abortion” and “contraception.” Then she should explain why she thinks she, or anyone else, has the right to dictate what religious people believe about either issue.

We know she wants to be president — but does she think she is God, too?

Snopes says this is a false statement.

Politifact says – The headlines from conservative media that we found such as Fox News focused on abortion: “Hillary: ‘Religious beliefs’ must change for sake of abortion.”

Clinton, who is a supporter of abortion rights, didn’t use the word abortion, but she did mention “reproductive health care,” which can include abortion as well as birth control or prenatal health care.

But her statement is somewhat different from Bush’s claim. She didn’t say that a “progressive agenda” should dictate religious beliefs — her overall point was that countries need to do more to help protect women’s rights to education, health care, and to live safely — and that to do so requires enforcing laws and changing religious beliefs.

Clinton’s speech didn’t only pertain to far flung countries — she was making a statement to religious conservatives in the United States.

“America moves forward when all women are guaranteed the right to make their own health care choices, not when those choices are taken away by an employer like Hobby Lobby,” she said. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that certain companies with religious objections can opt out of a mandate under the Affordable Care Act to provide free contraception to their employees.

“One would like to imagine that Clinton was speaking only about primitive cultures where children are forced into marriage and childbearing, or where genital cutting is common,” wrote Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post. “But we know that she also meant religious conservatives closer to home whose beliefs get in the way. She explicitly criticized Hobby Lobby for not paying for its employees’ contraception.”

Then Politifact makes their own decision as to what is said, – So the only area where she says beliefs must change that has any possible connection to domestic issues is in the reference to the overall category of reproductive health.

Bush is making Clinton’s remarks sound far more sweeping than they actually are. Clinton was talking about specific issues affecting women’s health and safety, in both a global and domestic context.  We rate this statement Half True. How do you like a legeral left leaning news source in partnership with the “Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald (liberal papers) interpreting for you what you can plainly read and understand. They treat you as if you don’t have a brain.

 

 

BY THE BOOK

 Great true story! Oh, that Hillary had such courage.

By The Book

Phillip Jennings is an investment banker and entrepreneur, former Marine Corps Captain who flew missions  in Vietnam and, after leaving the Marine Corps, flew for Air America in Laos. He won the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society short fiction award in 1998. He has a degree in business administration and is the CEO of Mayfair Capital Partners.  He is the author of two novels and one non-fiction book.

He authored the following article which appeared in the May 26, 2016 edition of USA Today.  It is short and should be required reading for everyone.

Secretary without honor

When I hear people say Clinton emails don’t matter, I remember a young Marine captain who owned up to his career-ruining mistake.

Apologists for Hillary Clinton’s alleged criminal mishandling of classified documents say that it doesn’t matter, that she really did nothing wrong, or nothing significant. But the real question is not so much what she did as how she has responded to being found out.

Once during the mid-1960s when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, I was the air liaison officer for a battalion of Marines aboard 11 ships in the Mediterranean. As the air officer and a senior captain, I had a rotating responsibility for the nuclear code book, kept in the safe in the operations room of the lead amphibious squadron command ship. I shared that duty with another captain, a squared away young man, liked by all he commanded and the son of a very high-ranking Marine.

On the day our ships were leaving the Mediterranean, we met the new amphibious squadron near Gibraltar and made preparations to transfer security codes and other sensitive material to the incoming Marine battalion. The young captain was on duty and went to the operations office to pick up the code book. He was alone in the office. He removed the code book and placed it on the desk while closing the safe. In a rushed moment, he stepped across the passageway to retrieve something he needed from his quarters. Seconds later, he stepped back into the operations office and found the operations sergeant having just entered, looking down at the code book.

Against all regulations, the code book had been out of the safe and unattended. It mattered not that it was unattended for only seconds, that the ship was 5 miles at sea, or that it was certain no one unauthorized had seen the code. The captain could have explained this to the operations sergeant. He could have told the sergeant that he “would take care of it.” He could have hinted that his high-ranking dad could smooth it over.

But the Marine Corps’ values are honor, courage and commitment. Honor is the bedrock of our character. The young captain could not ask the sergeant to betray his duty to report the infraction, no matter how small. Instead, the captain simply said, “Let’s go see the colonel.”

That captain had wanted to be a Marine officer all of his life. It was the only career he ever wanted. When he reported the incident to the colonel, he knew he was jeopardizing his life’s dream. But he did it.

The results went by the book. The amphibious squadron stood down. Military couriers flew in from NATO. The codes were changed all over Europe. The battalion was a day late in leaving the Mediterranean. The captain, Leonard F. Chapman III, received a letter of reprimand, damaging his career. He stayed in the corps and died in a tragic accident aboard another ship.

I saw some heroic acts in combat in Vietnam, things that made me proud to be an American and a Marine. But that young captain stood for what makes our corps and our country great.

Clinton is the antithesis of that young captain, someone with no honor, little courage and commitment only to her endless ambition. This has nothing to do with gender, party affiliation, ideology or policy. It is a question of character — not just hers, but ours. Electing Clinton would mean abandoning holding people accountable for grievous errors of integrity and responsibility. What we already know about her security infractions should disqualify her for any government position that deals in information critical to mission success, domestic or foreign. But beyond that, her responses to being found out — dismissing its importance, claiming ignorance, blaming others — indict her beyond anything the investigation can reveal. Those elements reveal her character. And the saddest thing is that so many in America seem not to care.

Lewis Cass, born October 9, 1782

American Minute with Bill Federer

The Democrat Party’s candidate for President in the 1848 election was Lewis Cass, born OCTOBER 9, 1782.

In 1807, Lewis Cass became the US Marshal for Ohio.

He was a Brigadier-General in the War of 1812, fighting in the Battle of the Thames.

President James Madison appointed him Governor-General of the Michigan Territory, 1813-1831, where he made Indian treaties, organized townships and built roads.

In 1820, he led an expedition to northern Minnesota to search for the source of the Mississippi River in order to define the border between the U.S. and Canada.

Cass’ expedition geologist Henry Schoolcraft identified the Mississippi’s source as Lake Itasca in 1832.

President Andrew Jackson appointed Lewis Cass as Secretary of War in 1831, then minister to France in 1836.

He was elected a U.S. Senator from Michigan, 1845-48, 1849-57.

Senator Lewis Cass wrote from Washington, D.C. in 1846:

“God, in His providence, has given us a Book of His revealed will to be with us at the commencement of our career in this life and at its termination;

and to accompany us during all chances and changes of this trying and fitful progress, to control the passions, to enlighten the judgment, to guide the conscience, to teach us what we ought to do here, and what we shall be hereafter.”

Lewis Cass delivered a Eulogy for Secretary of State Daniel Webster, December 14, 1852:

“‘How are the mighty fallen!’ we may yet exclaim, when reft of our great and wisest; but they fall to rise again from death
to life, when such quickening faith in the mercy of God and in the sacrifice of the Redeemer comes to shed upon them its happy influence this side of the grave and beyond it…”

Continuing his Eulogy of Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass stated”

“And beyond all this he died in the faith of the Christian – humble, but hopeful – adding another to the long list of eminent men who have searched the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and have found it to be the word and the will of God.”

Lewis Cass was Secretary of State for President James Buchanan, 1857-1860.

The State of Michigan placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

In 17 States, Lewis Cass has places named for him, including: 30 townships, 10 cities, 10 streets, 9 counties, 4 schools, 3 parks, 2 lakes, 1 river, 1 fort, and 1 building.

Lewis Cass stated:

“Independent of its connection with human destiny hereafter, the fate of republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion,

and a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passions and of arbitrary power.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s books here.

273 – Sept. 30 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

 

Elder John Leland married Miss Sallie Devine on Sept. 30, 1776, and God blessed them with eight children. As the Apostles, along with Patrick Henry, Carrington, and Washington, he would have been considered an “unlearned and ignorant” man, in that he had received no formal education. But his proficiency in the gospel, law and politics was as profound as any of his contemporaries. Born in Grafton, Mass. on May 14, 1754, he was saved after a lengthy period of conviction over his sins. In June of 1774 he moved to Virginia, was ordained, and assumed the pastorate of the Mount Poney Baptist Church in Culpepper County. For the next fifteen years he served in a very successful evangelistic ministry that covered 75,000 miles, and the preaching of over 3,000 sermons. Altogether he baptized 1,352 converts. One woman’s husband came to shoot him but he got her under while the members detained him. His shrewd and witty mind aided him in championing soul liberty and religious freedom. It was primarily through his able leadership that we have the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He also opposed slavery when it was unpopular to do so, and was successful in disenfranchising the Protestant Episcopal Church which was supported by taxation in Virginia. He ended his life still preaching the gospel in his native Massachusetts and died at age 67 on Jan. 14, 1841. [Robert Boyle C. Howell, The Early Baptists of Virginia (Philadelphia: Bible and Publication Society. 1857), p. 242

Dr. Greg J. Dixon: From: This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson,   pp.  535 – 36        

The post 273 – Sept. 30 – This Day in Baptist History Past appeared first on The Trumpet Online.

Republican Congressman Sends Bibles to His Fellow Legislators

BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER

August 6, 2014|3:20 pm

(PHOTO: FLIKR CREATIVE COMMONS)

The Gutenberg Bible, first printed book.

A Mississippi Congressman who belongs to the Republican House Whip leadership has sent copies of the Holy Bible to all members of the United States Congress.

Rep. Steven Palazzo of Mississippi sent the Good Book to his peers last week, along with a note including the official Congress letterhead.

“On a daily basis, we contemplate policy decisions that impact America’s future. Our staffs provide us with policy memos, statistics and recommendations that help us make informed decisions,” wrote Palazzo in the letter.

“However, I find that the best advice comes through meditating on God’s Word. Please find a copy of the Holy Bible to help guide you in your decision-making.”

The Reverend Rob Schenck, head of the Washington, DC – based group Faith and Action, told The Christian Post that he supported Palazzo’s Bible distribution.

“Rep. Palazzo is to be commended for sending Bibles to his members of Congress. For a Christian, sharing a Bible is one of the most meaningful things one can do for somebody you care about. So, it’s meaningful and generous,” said Schenck.

“Good for the Congressman. I’ll pray that his actions have a salutary effect on the thinking and actions of Congress as a whole. We need more of his kind of thing in Washington.”

Schenck also told CP that the Bibles were more likely to reach their intended audience because it was a peer like Palazzo sending them rather than an outside group.

“Bibles have been delivered to members by various groups and it’s always worth doing, but many times Bibles from the outside, so to speak, are intercepted by staff or diverted somewhere else,” said Schenck.

“When a Bible comes directly from a colleague, it’s far more likely it will land in the hands if it’s intended recipient.”

Palazzo’s gift went to all members of Congress, including those who do not consider themselves Christian, according to Sahil Kapur of Talking Points Memo.

“Palazzo’s letter was treated as a gesture of good will, including by non-Christian members of Congress who also received a copy of the Bible,”wrote Kapur.

“The first Muslim elected to Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), wrote back with a thank-you note. His office and other offices wouldn’t discuss the letter on the record.”

Not everyone was supportive of the move. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, spoke with concern about elected officials using the Bible as a pretext for public policy.

“When a politician calls for using the Bible as the basis for public policy, what he or she is really saying is, ‘Let’s use the Bible as I interpret it as the basis for public policy’,” said Lynn, according to TPM.

“Rather than look to the Bible or any other religious book to craft our nation’s public policy, we would do well to examine another source instead, one that was actually created to guide governance. It’s called the Constitution.”

Geoff Earle of the New York Post noted that Palazzo’s gift of a Bible to each member of Congress may be a timely act.

“Lawmakers will have plenty of time to study the Bible’s discourses on avarice, sloth, vanity and depravity. The letter went out Tuesday — right before the start of a month long congressional recess,” wrote Earle.

Tanasqui, Tanasi, Tennessee

American Minute with Bill Federer

Spanish Explorers Hernando de Soto, in 1540, and Juan Pardo, in 1567, traveled inland from North America’s eastern coast and passed through a Native American village named “Tanasqui.”

A century and a half later, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi.

After the Revolutionary War, attempts were made to name it the “State of Franklin,” in honor of Ben Franklin.

At the State’s Constitutional Convention, it is said General Andrew Jackson suggested name “Tennessee.”

In 1796, President George Washington signed Congress’ bill accepting Tennessee as the 16th State.

The wording approved in Tennessee’s Constitution included:

“Article XI, Section III…All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.”

Though Article XI, Section IV, of Tennessee’s Constitution stated:

“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this State,”

it also stated in Article VIII, Section II:

“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.”

Tennessee was birthplace of:

Congressman Davy Crockett, who died at the Alamo;
Sam Houston, who helped Texas gain its independence;
Admiral David Farragut, who won the Battle of Mobile Bay;
Matthew Fontaine Maury, U.S. Navy oceanographer; and
Sequoyah, creator of the Cherokee written language.

General Andrew Jackson was a Congressman and Senator from Tennessee, as well as a State Supreme Court Judge.

Elected the 7th U.S. President, Jackson was the founder of the Democrat Party and only President to completely pay off the national debt.

Jackson warned December 5, 1836:

“The experience of other nations admonished us to hasten the extinguishment of the public debt…

An improvident expenditure of money is the parent of profligacy,

and that no people can hope to perpetuate their liberties who long acquiesce in a policy which taxes them for objects not necessary to the legitimate and real wants of their Government…”

Andrew Jackson continued:

“To require the people to pay taxes to the Government merely that they may be paid back again…

Nothing could be gained by it even if each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back promptly the same portion…”

Jackson added:

“Congress is only authorized to levy taxes ‘to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.’

There is no such provision as would authorize Congress to collect together the property of the country, under the name of revenue, for the purpose of dividing it equally or unequally among the States or the people.

Indeed, it is not probable that such an idea ever occurred to the States when they adopted the Constitution…”

President Jackson cautioned:

“There would soon be but one taxing power, and that vested in a body of men far removed from the people, in which the farming and mechanic interests would scarcely be represented.

The States would gradually lose their purity as well as their independence; they would not dare to murmur at the proceedings of the General Government, lest they should lose their supplies;

all would be merged in a practical consolidation, cemented by widespread corruption, which could only be eradicated by one of those bloody revolutions which occasionally overthrow the despotic systems of the Old World.”

After the Civil War, Tennessee was the first State readmitted to the Union, JULY 24, 1866.

President Johnson issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to former Confederates on September 7, 1867:

“Every person who shall seek to avail himself of this proclamation shall take the following oath…

‘I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support…the Constitution of the United States…So help me God.’”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s bookshere.

Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a dual July 11, 1804

American Minute with Bill Federer

He intentionally fired into the air, but his political rival, Vice-President Aaron Burr, took deadly aim and fatally shot him in a duel JULY 11, 1804.

Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies on the Island of Nevis.

As his parents were not legally married, he was not permitted to attend the Anglican academy, resulting in him being tutored at a private school by a Jewish headmistress.

Hamilton worked for merchants till, at the age of 17, he sailed to Massachusetts in 1772 to attend Elizabethtown Academy.

He was studying at Columbia College in New York when the Revolutionary War started.

Alexander Hamilton eventually became an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, and fought in the Battles of Trenton and Yorktown.

During the Revolution, Alexander Hamilton wrote “The Farmer Refuted,” February 23, 1775, stating:

“The Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence…and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety.”

Alexander Hamilton continued:

“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records.

They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

Alexander Hamilton concluded:

“Good and wise men, in all ages…have supposed that the Deity, from the relations we stand in to Himself, and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind…

This is what is called the law of nature…dictated by God himself.”

Alexander Hamilton helped write the U.S. Constitution, stating at the Constitutional Convention, June 22, 1787:

“Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions.

There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind is more honest that they are.”

After the Constitution was written, Alexander Hamilton helped convinced the States to ratify it by being one of the authors of The Federalist Papers.

Alexander Hamilton wrote of the Constitution:

“I sincerely esteem it a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.”

Hamilton pushed Congress to have ships, called Revenue Cutters, to guard the coasts from piracy, collect revenue and confiscate contraband, thus beginning of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Opposed to slavery, Hamilton and John Jay founded the New York Manumission Society which successfully helped pass legislation to end New York’s involvement in the slave trade in 1799.

Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury – his statue is at the south entrance of the Treasury building in Washington, DC.

He served as Senior Officer of the United States Army during a threatened war with France in 1799.

During the 1800 election, Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in Thomas Jefferson being chosen as President over Aaron Burr.

Before the 1804 election, Alexander Hamilton threatened to withdraw from the Federalist Party if it chose Vice-President Aaron Burr as its Presidential Candidate.

Hamilton began organizing The Christian Constitutional Society.

On April 16, 1802, Alexander Hamilton wrote to James Bayard:

“Let an association be formed to be denominated ‘The Christian Constitutional Society,’ its object to be first: The support of Christian religion; second: The support of the United States.”

Alexander Hamilton warned:

“Liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race…

Civil liberty…cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.”

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The Moral Liberal contributing editor, William J. Federer, is the bestselling author of “Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance no Longer Tolerates Religion,” and numerous other books. A frequent radio and television guest, his daily American Minute is broadcast nationally via radio, television, and Internet. Check out all of Bill’s bookshere.

Thomas Sowell To Liberals, Words Trump Facts

 

Words seem to carry far more weight than facts among those liberals who argue as if rent control laws actually control rents and gun control laws actually control guns.

It does no good to point out to them that the two American cities where rent control laws have existed longest and strongest — New York and San Francisco — are also the two cities with the highest average rents.

Nor does it make a dent on them when you point out evidence, from both sides of the Atlantic, that tightening gun control laws does not reduce gun crimes, including murder. It is not uncommon for gun crimes to rise when gun control laws are tightened. Apparently armed criminals prefer unarmed victims.

Minimum wage laws are another issue where the words seem to carry great weight, leading to the fact-free assumption that such laws will cause wages to rise to the legally specified minimum. Various studies going back for decades indicate that minimum wage laws create unemployment, especially among the younger, less experienced and less skilled workers.

When you are unemployed, your wages are zero, regardless of what the minimum wage law specifies.

Having followed the controversies over minimum wage laws for more than half a century, I am always amazed at how many ways there are to evade the obvious.

A discredited argument that first appeared back in 1946 recently surfaced again in a televised discussion of minimum wages. A recent survey of employers asked if they would fire workers if the minimum wage were raised. Two-thirds of the employers said that they would not. That was good enough for a minimum wage advocate.

Unfortunately, the consequences of minimum wage laws cannot be predicted on the basis of employers’ statements of their intentions. Nor can the consequences of a minimum wage law be determined, even after the fact, by polling employers on what they did.

The problem with polls, in dealing with an empirical question like this, is that you can only poll survivors.

Every surviving business in an industry might have as many employees as it had before a minimum wage increase — and yet, if the additional labor costs led to fewer businesses surviving, there could still be a reduction in industry employment, despite what the poll results were from survivors.

There are many other complications that make an empirical study of the effects of minimum wages much more difficult than it might seem.

Since employment varies for many reasons other than a minimum wage law, at any given time the effects of those other factors can outweigh the effects of minimum wage laws. In that case, employment could go up after a particular minimum wage increase — even if it goes up less than it would have without the minimum wage increase.

Minimum wage advocates can seize upon statistics collected in particular odd circumstances to declare that they have now “refuted” the “myth” that minimum wages cause unemployment.

Yet, despite such anomalies, it is surely no coincidence that those few places in the industrial world which have had no minimum wage law, such as Switzerland and Singapore, have consistently had unemployment rates down around 3 percent. “The Economist” magazine once reported: “Switzerland’s unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9% in February.”

It is surely no coincidence that, during the last administration in which there was no federal minimum wage — the Calvin Coolidge administration — unemployment ranged from a high of 4.2 percent to a low of 1.8 percent over its last four years.

It is surely no coincidence that, when the federal minimum wage law remained unchanged for 12 years while inflation rendered the law meaningless, the black teenage unemployment rate — even during the recession year of 1949 — was literally a fraction of what it has been throughout later years, as the minimum wage rate has been raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation.

When words trump facts, you can believe anything. And the liberal groupthink taught in our schools and colleges is the path of least resistance.

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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

 

115 – April 25 – This Day in Baptist History Past

An Exciting Missionary Adventure

The die was cast on April 25, 1844, when Richard Fuller, prominent pastor from Charleston, South Carolina, presented a resolution at the Triennial Convention to restrict its action to missions and not to become involved in the problem of slavery.  From 1814 until 1845, missionary efforts had been primarily made through the Triennial Convention, but in 1845 the split between North and South occurred.  However, Baptist associations in various states had formed small, independent mission agencies as well.  Richard Henry Stone, born in Culpeper county, Virginia on July 17, 1837, he was sent as a missionary by a Georgia association to serve the Lord in Africa.  He united with the Salem Baptist church in Culpeper County and answered the call of the Baptists in Georgia for a missionary to Africa, he and his wife Susan sailed out of Baltimore on November 4.  They were three months on the journey, and landed at Lagos.  They disciplined themselves to learn the Ijayte language, but with failing health, the couple was forced to return to the States.  Mr. Stone then joined the confederate army, and served as a chaplain with the 49th Georgia, Benning’s Brigade.  In 1867, with the completion of the war, Mr. Stone returned to Africa and Lagos for two years.  The last twenty years of Mr. Stone’s life were spent in Virginia and Kentucky where he supported his family by teaching.  Mr. stone died on October 7, 1894, and he was buried in the Fairview Cemetery in Culpeper.

Dr. Dale R. Hart adapted from:  This Day in Baptist History III (David L. Cummins) p.p.  239   –   241

273 – Sept. 30 – This Day in Baptist History Past

Through him we have the First Amendment

1776 – Elder John Leland married Miss Sallie Devine, and God blessed them with eight children. As the Apostles, along with Patrick Henry, Carrington, and Washington, he would have been considered an “unlearned and ignorant” man, in that he had received no formal education. But his proficiency in the gospel, law and politics was as profound as any of his contemporaries. Born in Grafton, Mass. on May 14, 1754, he was saved after a lengthy period of conviction over his sins. In June of 1774 he moved to Virginia, was ordained, and assumed the pastorate of the Mount Poney Baptist Church in Culpepper County. For the next fifteen years he served in a very successful evangelistic ministry that covered 75,000 miles, and the preaching of over 3,000 sermons. Altogether he baptized 1,352 converts. One woman’s husband came to shoot him but he got her under while the members detained him. His shrewd and witty mind aided him in championing soul liberty and religious freedom. It was primarily through his able leadership that we have the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He also opposed slavery when it was unpopular to do so, and was successful in disenfranchising the Protestant Episcopal Church which was supported by taxation in Virginia. He ended his life still preaching the gospel in his native Massachusetts, and died at age 67 on Jan. 14, 1841. [Robert Boyle C. Howell, The Early Baptists of Virginia (Philadelphia: Bible and Publication Society. 1857), p. 242 This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. pp. 535-36]  Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon