Restoring Education Central to American Greatness http://davidanorris.posterous.com David A. Norris Blog posterous.com Tue, 25 Dec 2012 14:07:00 -0800 Introduction V http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-v http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-v

When God's protective care is rejected in any particular, the rejector bears the price of that sin against himself and against the life-giving boundaries of creation's nature.

 

An insightful experience as been shared by Marvin Olasky, Distinguished Chair in Journalism at Patrick Henry College, editor of WORLD magazine and author of more than twenty books.  A former Marxist intellectual, Olasky was highly regarded by the chairman of his PhD academic program and dissertation committee at the University of Michigan.  Olasky, who became disillusioned by the shallowness of socialistic panaceas, became a solid convert to Christianity.  He concurs with Whittaker Chambers who came to believe in God after being a Communist Party member in the 1920s and 1930s.  In the autobiography Witness, Whittaker Chambers writes: "A Communist breaks because he must choose at last between irreconcilable opposites--God or man, Soul [conscience] or Mind [emotions], Freedom or Communism.  The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God."*

 

*http://www.the-boondocks.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&&goto=212310

 

In this book, the focus upon the danger to American liberty has been narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem--atheist secular militants.

 

The first principle adopted by leftist or atheistic evangelicals, and upon which their lesser initiatives rest, is the God-rejecting theory of evolution.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life's origin, meaning and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.  Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the herculean efforts of science-pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist, has written truthfully: "Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable" (Sir Arthur Keith, a citation in Wallie A. Criswell's Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1967).

 

"Old European secular philosophy" is a general term that includes the many sects championed by God-rejecting intellectuals.  The traditional American use of the word secular is to distinguish national, state and local governments from church governments.  This has become too confusing for modern day use on two counts.  First, used by radicals, the word "secular" leaves people blindsided to the fact that the science of their agenda is driven by deception and the insistence on an atheistic secular worldview monopoly.  Secondly, their atheistic worldview is religious, with a deeply-held Darwinian view about the origin and meaning of life.  In 1961, the Supreme Court in Torcaso v. Watkins classified secular humanism (the title used by secular militants in academia) as a religion.  To avoid the misleading use of the word "secular," we suggest there are times that the phrase atheistic secular be used.  Instead of being secular-authoritarian based, the American predicate for determining public policy is impartial, higher-authority and morality based.

 

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today's adherents to the old European secular philosophy--the religious and political left.

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:31:00 -0800 Introduction IV: Truth or Consequences Applies to Nations http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-iv-truth-or-consequences-applies http://davidanorris.posterous.com/introduction-iv-truth-or-consequences-applies

What are the consequences that befall nations when partisan authoritarians take God, with moral accountability, out of education?  Typical of empires that have cluttered cemeteries throughout human history, the Soviets had flooded their empire with propaganda.  Darwin's theory for human origins had become the basis for education.  The consequences included growing alcoholism, youthful insolence and irresponsible attitudes toward work and self-support.

 

At a United Nations forum on December 7, 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, atheist leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, acknowledged that the God-rejecting dogma of Karl Marx and Charles Darwin was an utter failure (evil).  Reflecting upon the disintegration under the secular progressive government, Gorbachev said: “The compelling necessity of the principle of freedom of choice is … clear to us.  The failure to recognize this … is fraught with very dire consequences …  Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions.  We have not come to the conclusion of the immutability of this principle simply through good motives.  We have been led to it through impartial analysis of the objective processes of our time.  This objective fact presupposes respect for other people’s views“ (George P. Schultz, Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, Turmoil and Triumph, New York: Macmillan, 1993, p. 1107.  This book traces the moral and economic collapse of the Soviet Socialist Empire).

 

Gorbachev tried to prevent the collapse of truth-trashing socialistic rule.  To do this, he adopted Perestroika, which allowed the people to be informed and free to communicate.  He also legalized property rights, but socialism had gone too far.  Beginning in 1989, the puppet Communist governments in captive countries controlled by the Soviets were overthrown by the people.  The Soviet Union fell apart when captive countries quit contributing the revenue required to keep the socialist economy going. 

 

Whether or not Gorbachev realized it, the Soviet empire was being forced to acknowledge that those who reject the sovereignty of man under God over government run into the immutable laws of creation’s nature.  Those laws support life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  In contrast, the vacillating laws of man lead to exploitation, cultural decay, poverty and tyranny.

 

Writing of Perestroika, Gorbachev’s wife Raisa said:  “Our society has set out on the path of renewal and of demolishing totalitarianism and the obsolete command system of administering the country” (Raisa Gorbachev, Reminiscences and Reflections, Harper Collins, 1991, p. 174).  (See Appendix C, "How Socialism Exploits Mankind," Part IV--Supplemental Material, in this book.)

 

Both the Webster and Random House dictionaries identify socialism as a “Marxist theory.”  Winston Churchill stated: “Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state.”  He also said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

 

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu164131.html

 

When majorities on the Supreme Court force changes in our laws that reject the moral and God-honoring predicate of the United States Constitution, they have, in effect, empowered truth-trashing by radicals in government schools.  Separation of the right of church clergy to dictate (separation of church and state) does not justify the removal of "In God We Trust" as a publicly held standard.  "Liberty and life are the gratuitous gifts of heaven.  I shall certainly be excused from adducing any formal arguments to evince, that life, and whatever is necessary for the safest of life, are the natural rights of man.  Some things are so difficult; others are so plain, that they cannot be proved" (Supreme Court Justice James Wilson, Lectures, delivered in the College of Philadelphia 1790-1791.  Volume II, Part II, Chapter 1, Lorenzo Press, 1804).

 

 

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Fri, 26 Oct 2012 07:50:00 -0700 Part Six: Grand Jury Presentment on "Problems in Higher Education" http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-six-grand-jury-presentment-on-problems-i http://davidanorris.posterous.com/part-six-grand-jury-presentment-on-problems-i

Portions of the Presentment of the Grand Jury for the Eleventh Judicial District of Iowa follow, with words added for clarification in brackets.  Supplemental ideas are italicized.

 

Summary

 

The concrete evidence of failures is well illustrated by the article entitled "New Left's Boasts: We Are Organizing Sedition."  According to the article, the New York Times asked an Iowa State University student where he picked up his radical ideas.  The student referred to a teacher by name and concluded, "He was a history teacher here [Iowa State University] two years ago.  I took a course in Ideas of Western Civilization from him.  That got me started."  There is no doubt that some teachers are guilty of using their status to effectively subvert or undermine the morals and allegiance of some students.

 

Friedrich A. Hayek said, regarding sectarian missionaries, "The whole intellectual climate [is a] complete perversion of language…  Collectivism means the end of truth…  The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before."*

 

The atheistic humanist approach to education is illustrated by events at ISU.  Using scurrilous charges, tenured academic mafia undermined academic freedom and forced the discontinuation of a very popular university course dealing with creation science.  The course violated the secular dogma upon which the God-rejecting theory of evolution, anti-Americanism, and anti-morality are constructed.  The course, taught by a highly ranked professor administrator at Iowa State University, was discontinued, and the professors who bullied that decision into effect did not receive so much as a reprimand.

 

According to an article in the Ames Tribune, May 12, 2007, "Guillermo Gonzalez… [was] denied tenure this semester by Iowa State University."  In this event that became known to the public, Iowa State University denied tenure to gifted astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who made the mistake of writing a book that included academic support for intelligent design.  At the same time, the university promoted to full professor with tenure rights in the soft sciences an outspoken leftist, Hector Avalos. As a religious studies professor, he served as the adviser to the ISU Atheist Society.

 

Our investigation indicates that the main reason for the youthful rebellion and attitude of carelessness in student morals is their loss of confidence in the wisdom embedded in their heritage.  Failure to clearly implant these truths detaches future generations from past experience, the very basis of education.

 

In the field of morality, all basic truths have been apprehended.  All the changing conditions we hear so much about do not affect the validity or applicability of the central directives of human conduct.  These truths are demonstrated both by their benefits and by the consequences of disregarding them--those who do fall easily into lawlessness, and harmful addictions, et cetera.  There is no greater contribution a teaching institution can make to human progress and purpose than to endow students at all levels with this knowledge.

 

Those who place their present faith and future hope in law enforcement to conduct humanity to brighter times ignore a fundamental psychological truth.  Legal and material attempts to correct human conduct resulting form improper training must all end in failure.  It is impossible to superimpose an effective code of ethics through compulsion.  Police force provides nothing more corrective than temporary control of faulty behavior that is traceable to education's failure to implant established knowledge of morality and the precepts of individual responsibility.

 

Gonzalez

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez

 

 

*Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Britain, Rutledge, 1944, 174).

 

Image from http://www.public.iastate.edu/~astro/fickwww/calendar2005/mather.html

 

Biography of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez at http://www.discovery.org/a/4058

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:45:57 -0700 The Emergence of Teacher Tenure Law http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-emergence-of-teacher-tenure-law http://davidanorris.posterous.com/the-emergence-of-teacher-tenure-law

Teacher tenure law was brought from Europe to America with the founding of the American Association of University Professors in 1915.  Their first president, Professor John Dewey (1859-1952) was a published atheist.  Dewey reminded conferees, "To have failed to undertake these initial demands would have been cowardly."*

 

The abuse of academic freedom and teacher tenure guarantees is rooted in the old European secular philosophy.  John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy point out that, when Darwinian advocates coupled their "origin and destiny of man" theory with the authoritarianism of "German graduate methods [faculty independence]… academic freedom became a cause celebrate [highly controversial]."**  According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative."***

 

The harmful impact of teacher tenure guarantees arises from the use of law (government power) to shelter teachers from accountability to the public for what they teach.  "The obligations of the teacher are direct to truth, and the teacher who, in order to please anybody, suppresses important information, or says things he knows are not true, or refrains from saying things that need to be said in the interest of truth, betrays his calling and renders himself unworthy to belong to the company of teachers."****

 

John Dewey is recognized as a key leader of the Teachers Union, Local 5, which was organized in 1916 as an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in New York City.  The union's principal target was the repeal of the Lusk Laws, statutes that allowed for the revocation of a teacher's license "if he is not of good moral character--or if by act or utterance he shows that he will not support the Constitution of the State or of the United States of America.*****

 

This belligerent breed of social engineers gradually pushed its way into the leadership of government-administered education.  The group also included Professor John Dewey.  He was the first president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and was one of the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto.  He also served as honorary president of the National Education Association (NEA) after it came under leftist control.

 

These authoritarians demand taxpayer-funded tenure guarantees, the means to finance and empower their war against citizen self-rule and liberty.  To achieve their goal, they must have the freedom to turn the minds of students away from the beliefs of their parents and traditional American values.

 

Image_nea_radicalunion-295x300

*John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 310.

**Ibid., 296.

***Ibid., 306.

****W. T. Couch, Academic Freedom (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1995), 1; quoted at a conference titled "Fifty Years After Russell Kirk's Academic Freedom:  The Future of the Liberal Arts in America," Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, February 2-6, 2005.

*****Kheel Center for Labor Management, Teachers Union of the City of New York. Records, 1921-42, Collection Number: 5445, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/KCL05445.html

Image from http://www.reflector.com/greenville-news-board/nc-public-school-teacher-gives...

 

 

For more information or to purchase

Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 06:40:31 -0700 Tighten Up the Language http://davidanorris.posterous.com/tighten-up-the-language http://davidanorris.posterous.com/tighten-up-the-language

Let's tighten up the language and clear the air about the basics for public education.  The language of secular open-mindedness along with Darwinian origin and meaning of life have proven to be diabolical enemies of the rule of law.  The underpinning for the rule of law rests in the July 4, 1776 Declaration that gave birth to the United States of America.  All men "… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."  The Declaration of Independence is universal and immortal in scope.  Along with the Declaration, the citizen's Bill of Rights (of which government employees cannot legitimately violate) added later to the Constitution provides the design.  The Constitution is the tool for implementing that design.

 

Appellate court judges need not bow down to atheistic secular legalese.  The impartial non-sectarian Supreme role of a Higher Authority, emphasized in the Declaration, is justifiably appropriate when writing a court opinion.

 

It is needful that we reject the spirit of rebellion and enjoin the spirit of truth that empowers man to storm the strongholds of evil.  It is spiritual wisdom that enabled this nation to become the most blessed civilization in history.  The restoration of spiritual glory--the potential to reassert our culture's values of freedom, education, prosperity and truth--is at hand.

 

Using twisted renderings of the Bill of Rights, leftist lawyers and tenured radicals in education have forced Americans--good teachers, as well as the citizen majority--into submission.  They terrorize by denigrating the reputation of teachers who dare to disagree and endangering the financial solvency of those who must hire expensive lawyers to defend traditional American values.  Secular militants have shut down ideological competition by preventing religious, political and academic freedom on many campuses throughout the nation.  Militants who oppose citizen self-reliance and limited government in America are effectively muting the voices of tens of millions of concerned citizens.

 

Nea

Image from http://religiopoliticaltalk.com/category/politicspolitical-science/pundits-pe...

 

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

http://www.facebook.com/restoringeducationcentraltoamericangreatness

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002512790358

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Fri, 08 Jun 2012 19:33:00 -0700 John Adams: A Government of Laws and Not of Men http://davidanorris.posterous.com/john-adams-a-government-of-laws-and-not-of-me http://davidanorris.posterous.com/john-adams-a-government-of-laws-and-not-of-me

John Adams used the words "government of laws, and not of men" when he wrote the Bill of Rights for the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780.*  The preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution includes:  "We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the great Legislator of the universe, in affording us, in the course of His providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprise, of entering into an original, explicit, and solemn compact with each other; and of forming a new constitution of civil government, for ourselves and posterity; and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, do agree upon, ordain and establish the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."  The Massachusetts Bill of Rights goes on to read like the principles in the non-sectarian Creator-based Declaration of Independence.**

 

In contrast, a government "of men" rests upon revisionist morality, which makes the Constitution meaningless.  Contemporary liberals who reject the God-honoring meaning for "government of laws, and not of men" are aided by militant atheists, who not only reject "government of law," but work feverishly to eliminate all references to God in education and public discourse.  Described by Solon of Athens as "government by incalculable and changeable decrees," the religious justification for revisionist morality is a strongly held belief about life's origin, meaning and purpose:  atheistic Darwinism.***  Sold as absolute science, the demand for education exclusivity is, in reality, the religion of scientific fascism.  Liberals are constantly revising Darwin's theory because the absurdity of their science is continually being exposed.  The underlying cause of the anger and militancy for their demands becomes clear.  They must prevent any ideological competition in the taxpayer-funded classroom.  Secular militants must have total control in order to dumb the students down.

 

Elected representatives make laws and serve by the "consent of the governed," who are "endowed by their Creator" with certain unalienable rights.  This claim reaches the very heart of American society and law.  Conservative Supreme Court justices have cited the Declaration as support for their decisions over two hundred times.  The Federalist Papers, written to promote acceptance of the Constitution by the people, cited the Declaration thirty-seven times.

 

When confronting the greatest crisis since the War for Independence, Abraham Lincoln turned to the Declaration to assert the "sacred right of self-government."****

 

When the Founding Fathers undertook a long war for independence, the did not dither, knowing full well that there were huge problems such as slavery and harmful citizen voting restrictions.  Citizen awareness, prayer and the Declaration of Independence resonates with people and by the grace of God those problems in 1776 were remedied.  With citizen awareness, which we are working on, and prayer, the cancer of socialistic paternalism can be removed.

 

Stuart_adams_john_c1800_15_ngdc

John Adams

2nd President of the United States

1735 - 1826

 

*www2.bartleby.com/73/991.html

**http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/Constitution#cp00s00.htm

***Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. II, The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster, 1939, 118. 

****Abraham Lincoln, October 10, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, http://www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/peoriaspeech.htm

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:17:21 -0700 Old European Secular Philosophy vs Education http://davidanorris.posterous.com/old-european-secular-philosophy-vs-education http://davidanorris.posterous.com/old-european-secular-philosophy-vs-education

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible

than in any profane history.*

Sir Isaac Newton

 

Backed by the 1947 Supreme Court decision Everson v. Board of Education, militant objectors to American principles and the American creed bullied their way into controlling the atmosphere of American public schools.  Instead of upholding their oath to abide by the Constitution, judges rule by "incalculable and changeable decrees."  Rule by men replaced government by established law.  The reasoning behind their decision reflects the old European secular doctrine of open-mindedness for dumbing the people down and transforming society.  Instead of being umpires, unelected judges are trampling on the sacred rights of the people by legislating superior rights for the enemies of responsible liberty.

 

A report by the nonpartisan Commission on Excellence in Education remains the premier American study of problems in public education.  It states:  "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people… If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."  The report laments "the deconstruct of the moral and spiritual strengths which knit together the very fabric of our society."**

 

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores have declined, and today the United States ranks academically near the bottom of the world's industrialized nations.  College seniors have no better grasp of general cultural knowledge than did high school graduates in the 1950s.  The average correct responses for modern college seniors on a series of questions was 53.5 percent, compared to 54.5 percent of high school graduates in 1955 (survey by Zogby International, April 2002, for the Princeton, New Jersey-based National Association of Scholars, presented by NAS President Stephen H. Balch in December 2002).

 

In the fall of 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut's National Civic Literacy Board conducted a survey of some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at fifty colleges and universities.  Students were asked sixty multiple-choice questions to measure their knowledge in four subject areas:  American history, government, international relations and market economy.  Seniors, on average, failed all four subjects and their overall average score was 53.2 percent.***

 

The abuse of academic freedom and teacher tenure guarantees is rooted in the old European secular philosophy.  John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy point out that, when Darwinian advocates coupled their "origin and destiny of man" theory with the authoritarianism of "German graduate methods [faculty independence]… academic freedom became a cause celebre [highly controversial]."   According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative" (John S. Brubacher, and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition, New York:  Harper and Row, 1958, 296 and 306).

 

"I believe that religion is the only solid base of morals and that morals are the only possible support of free governments.  Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duties of man towards God."

Gouverneur Morris

Signer of the Constitution

 

Claybennett

 

 

 

*Halley's Bible Handbook authored by Henry H. Halley and published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (republished since 1924).

**A Nation at Risk, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 26, 1983, http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html

***The Coming Crisis in Citizenship:  Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions, 09/26/2006, Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Board Report.  See http://content.usatoday.com/community/tags/topic.aspx?req=tag&tag=Interco...

Image from:  http://pleated-jeans.com/2012/03/23/funny-pic-dump-3-23-12/

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:01:00 -0700 Old European Secular Philosophy vs God http://davidanorris.posterous.com/old-european-secular-philosophy-vs-god http://davidanorris.posterous.com/old-european-secular-philosophy-vs-god

The old European secular philosophy includes secular humanists and other atheistic sects, such as the followers of Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Professor John Dewey and Fabian socialist John Maynard Keynes. Their agenda is obvious.  It is the elimination of God as well as a moral foundation for law.    

 

Their belief is expressed in the Humanist Manifesto:  "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves."  The first Humanist Manifesto, written in 1933, was published with thirty-four signatories including the educator John Dewey (Paul Kurtz, tenured radical professor, State University of New York at Buffalo, Humanist Manifesto II, 2).

 

Without exception, rejection of creation's God and freedom

for religious competition over the broad spectrum

of private and public life gives rise to moral revisionism.

 

The religious presupposition for the secular humanist mind-set comes from Charles Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Those who adopted Darwin's God-rejecting assumption about the origin, meaning and purpose of life have no dependable standards upon which to establish human equality, morality or representative government.  Truth, for them, is what man himself chooses at any given time and circumstance.  Standards are based on wishes, perceptions and mortal goals rather than on established knowledge, objective facts or principles.

 

According to Darwinian militants, "There is no fixed limit or perfect form of knowledge and, that on the contrary, truth is always tentative."*

 

The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.**

W. E. Gladstone

 

"The attempt by the rulers of a nation [France] to destroy all religious opinion, and to pervert a whole nation to atheism … [and] to establish atheism on the ruins of Christianity [is] to deprive mankind of its best consolations and most animating hopes, and to make a gloomy desert of the universe" (James D. Richardson, citing Alexander Hamilton from October 3, 1789, in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, published by Congress, 1899, Vol. I, 64).

Abrahamlincolnibelieve

 

*John S. Brubacher and Willis Rudy, Higher Education Transition (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 306.

**Halley's Bible Handbook authored by Henry H. Halley and published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI (republished since 1924).


For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Tue, 10 Apr 2012 08:36:17 -0700 The Dearth of Freedom in Public Education http://davidanorris.posterous.com/121448472 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/121448472

Continued reliance on the promise of reforms made by government education professionals simply give tenured radicals more time to dumb down our most precious resource and engineer the "transformation of society."

 

Milton and Rose Friedman pointed out in their book Free to Choose, published in 1980, that "The education, or rather the uneducation, of [all children in public schools but most harmfully] black children from low income families … [is a] disaster area in education and its most devastating failure."  The Friedmans continue:  "More than four decades ago Walter Lippmann diagnosed it as 'the sickness of an over-governed society,' … the exercise of un-limited power by men with limited minds and self-regarding prejudices is soon oppressive, reactionary, and corrupt, … that there are no limits to a man's capacity to govern others and that, therefore, no limits ought to be imposed upon government …  For schools, this has taken the form of denying many parents control over the kind of schooling their children receive.*

 

The radical minority boastfully proclaims their authoritarian credentials and warns opponents that "Sixty-seven countries' national academy of sciences (including the US National Academy of Science) signed the Inter-academy Panel's Statement on the Teaching of Evolution."  The truth is that it was a radical minority in those countries that have "signed" the document.**

 

Albert Einsten (1879-1955) was not stamped by the Darwinian craze.  He is thought to be among the most highly revered scientists of the twentieth century.  Although not a Christian, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe.  The Encyclopedia Britannica says of Einstein:  "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in 'Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists.'  He once remarked to a young physicist:  'I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element.  I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.'  Einstein's famous epithet on the 'uncertainty principle' was 'God does not play dice.'  A famous saying of his was 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" (for more details search Famous Scientists Who Believed in God).

 

The pseudoscience of evolution rests on Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Darwin's theory about the origin of life is both unprovable and illogical.  Dr. Soren Lovtrup, a non-Biblicist scientist and author, declares:  "Believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science."***

 

Adam Sedgwick, one of Charles Darwin's professors at Cambridge University, took immediate issue with Darwin's book Origin of the Species.  Sedgwick told his former student that it "greatly shocked my moral taste" and elaborated in a passage that proved prophetic:  "There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical.  A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly.  'Tis the crown and glory of organic sciences that it does thro' final cause, link material to moral; …  You have ignored this link; and, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have done your best in one or two pregnant clauses to break it.  Were it possible, which, thank God, it is not, to break it, humanity in my mind would suffer a damage that might brutalize it--and the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written record tells us of its history."****

 

When collective bargaining unions had a monopoly for supplying railroad industry workers, the opportunity for truckers to compete by hauling freight gave the public an option and stopped costly exploitation by railroad employee unions.  Also, employee unions dominated the auto industry and cars were poorly made.  It was competition from the manufacturers of foreign-made cars that restored quality to automobiles made by American auto manufacturers.  And now at least two American auto manufacturers have been forced into bankruptcy or government takeover because of government-established unions that demand unreasonable wages for autoworkers.

 

When Medieval European religious authoritarians achieved control of education in the Roman Catholic Church, it was competition sparked by the martyrs (the offended protesters were themselves Catholics) that brought about the great Reformation and gave the masses freedom from the despotic education monopoly.

Life_lib_and_pur

 

*Milton and Rose Friedman, Free To Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 151.

**State of Washington, Kitsap Herald, July 22, 2006, A4.

***Dr. Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (New York: Croom Helm, 1987), 422.

****Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/sedgwick.html

 

Image from http://stonescryout.org/?cat=54

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:23:00 -0700 Public Education Shuns Reality http://davidanorris.posterous.com/119743237 http://davidanorris.posterous.com/119743237

The secularization of education discriminates against students.  The idea of the Ten Commandments as a basis for personal decision-making is fully substantiated by beneficial outcomes.  Without that moral compass, our nation's youth are left in the dark and under the CONTROL of destructive thinking.  They are not given the knowledge for healthy families, fiscal common sense and national prosperity.  When taxpayers figure this out, marginalization by teacher union bosses and teacher tenure will be exposed.  This will open things up and give parents, along with 95% of the teachers (who are in agreement with the citizen majority), the freedom to install religious diversity back as a source of knowledge.

 

This struggle within our education system is not a debate between science and religion, but between religion and religion, atheism and theism.  Science is simply the sphere in which the debate is taking place.

 

Dr. Michael Ruse, a leading evolutionist and authority on philosophy, points out in his recently published book The Evolution-Creation Struggle that the "theory of evolution is, in fact, religion."*  Dr. Ruse also writes:  "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science.  Evolution is an ideology, a secular religion, a full-fledged alternative to Christianity with meaning and morality.  Evolution is a religion.  This was true of evolution in the beginning and is true of evolution today."

 

The change in American culture since the 1947 Supreme Court decision in Everson v. Board of Education, teacher unionization, and tenure law has led to a colossal increase in family breakdown, abortion, homosexuality, use of addictive drugs, and burgeoning needs for hospital and prison space.  Universities and colleges dominated by the old European secular philosophy have become havens for alcoholism and dorm cohabitation by unmarried students.  Some state universities have a department of religion dominated by atheists who serve as a campus mafia to destroy the academic standing of any faculty member who dares to suggest that there is such an alternative to Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species as intelligent design or a God of creation.

 

"The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four [is] infected with at least one of the diseases, US health officials reported Tuesday" (Laurence K. Altman, The New York Times, Tuesday, Mark 11, 2008).  One in four US teenage girls have STDs.  The diseases, which are infections caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites, can produce acute symptoms … and potentially fatal entropic pregnancy … and cervical cancer."**

 

In 2010, according to Pam Stenzel, a leading lecturer to young people regarding sexual abstinence, teenage girls in America today are carrying, on average, 2.3 sexually transmitted diseases.  In one 24 hour period, 12,000 teens contract a sexually transmitted disease.***  In the 1950s there were five known sexually transmitted diseases.  They could be treated with antibiotics.  Today, there are over thirty sexually transmitted diseases and thirty percent of them are absolutely incurable.  Among the possible disastrous results are a lifelong necessity of treatment as well as sterility, infertility, radical hysterectomy, cervical cancer and death.****

 

"One of every 100 adults are in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America's rank as the world's No. 1 incarcerator," states a report from a new study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States.  With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates" (David Crary, New York Associated Press, February 28, 2008).

 

These are merely symptoms of the consequences of the courts' detachment from written and permanent law.  Far greater damage is the hidden loss to the soul of American youth.  Is it any wonder that studies show a significantly higher percentage of public school teachers send their children to private schools than non-teacher parents" (George Archibald, The Washington Times, September 22, 2004)?


Govt-censorship

 

 

*Dr. Michael Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 327.

**Lawrence K. Altman, "One In Four US Teenage Girls Have STD's, Study Finds," International Herald Tribune, March 12, 2008.

***Pam Stenzel, http://pamstenzel.com/

****Pam Stenzel, http://pamstenzel.com/


Image from: http://lawandict.blogspot.com/2011/02/block-outs-and-black-outs.html

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:11:00 -0700 Manipulation of the Constitution http://davidanorris.posterous.com/manipulation-of-the-constitution http://davidanorris.posterous.com/manipulation-of-the-constitution

Secular authoritarians insist upon what they call a "living constitution" that has an open-minded disconnect from moral absolutes.  As has been attributed to Dostoevsky among others, "If God is dead, then anything is permitted."  The colossal failure of secularized education flowing from teachers unions and tenure privileges, which subordinates citizen sovereignty, is the damning consequence of atheistic-secular politics.  The Constitution becomes a mere political document for manipulation by authoritarians who show themselves to be enemies of family, human dignity and limited government.

 

Regardless of the arguments advanced by those who reject the intent of the Constitution, the Rule of Law means that the government is limited in all of its actions by the rules fixed and ratified beforehand.  This is the context within which legislation, court decisions and administrative directives at all levels of government must fit.

 

For those who deny the important role of morality, here is its meaning from Merriam-Webster:  "a: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior:  ETHICAL <moral judgments>; b: expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem>; c: conforming to a standard of right behavior; d: sanctioned by or operative on one's conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation>; e: capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent>.

 

Americans determined to protect liberty reject the "living constitution" because it leaves society vulnerable to political deception.  Constitutional government by "written and permanent law" requires an amendment that is acceptable to the people before a change in its provisions is acceptable.  Faithfulness to this process protects society from political deception and the convolution associated with government by incalculable and changeable decrees.

 

Those who reject the rule of law based upon moral absolutes are like ships without an anchor.

Illusion_of_reality_diagram

This drift is illustrated by judicial decisions that set precedents ignoring and overriding the meaning of the Constitution.  An example of the foolishness of the rule of man rather than the rule of law is the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's ruling on November 2, 2005, that parents' fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door," and that a government school has the right to provide its students with "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise" (Fields v. School District, No. 03-56499, D.C. No. CV-03-00457-JVS).  This unconscionable judge-made law further strengthens the arms of union bosses, leftist teachers and radicals, if any, on school boards.

 

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today’s adherents to the old European secular philosophy—the religious and political left.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life’s origin, meaning, and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.*  A focus upon the danger to American liberty can be narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem—secular militarists.

 

American exceptionalism, the tradition of citizen self-reliance, and the liberty that comes with limited government CAN be restored.

 

 

 

*Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species, published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the Herculean efforts of science pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist has written:  “Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable” (Sir Arthur Keith, as citation in Wallie A. Criswell’s Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids MI:  Zondervan, 1972, p. 73; D. M. S. Watson acknowledged the same in Nature, vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp. 231-234).

 

For more information or to purchase Restoring Education Central to American Greatness:

http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000185969/Restoring-Education-Cen...

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Education-Greatness-Principles-Liberated/dp/1...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/restoring-education-david-a-norris/1103308053...

 

For previous blog entries on similar topics, simply go to this site and scroll down:

http://davidanorris.posterous.com/

 

Like on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Restoring-Education-Central-to-American-Greatne...

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:37:36 -0800 Secular? What Does THAT Mean? http://davidanorris.posterous.com/secular-what-does-that-mean http://davidanorris.posterous.com/secular-what-does-that-mean

It is necessary to reestablish the meaning of some key words in the educational debate.  This is because of the persistent dishonesty of radicals who migrated into the soft sciences* of universities and public schools saddled by tenure guarantees (which crept silently into collective bargaining laws starting in the early 1970s).

“Old European secular philosophy” is a general term that includes the many sects championed by God-rejecting intellectuals in Europe.  The traditional American use of the word “secular” is different ~ it was used to distinguish national, state, and local governments from church governments.  These governments, though not in themselves religious, were foundationally directed within a greater context that respected the values and will of God.

This has become too confusing for modern-day use on two counts.  First, used by radicals, the word “secular” leaves people blindsided to the fact that the science of their agenda is driven by deception and insistence on an atheistic-secular worldview monopoly.  Secondly, their atheistic worldview IS religious, with a deeply held Darwinian view about the origin and meaning of life.  In 1961, the Supreme Court in Torcaso v. Watkins classified secular humanism (the title used by secular militants in academia) as a religion.  To avoid the misleading use of the word “secular,” we suggest there are times that the phrase atheistic-secular be used.  Instead of being secular-authoritarian based, the American predicate for determining public policy is impartial, higher-authority and morality-based.

American conservatism transcends both the good and evil intentions of today’s adherents to the old European secular philosophy—the religious and political left.  Revisionist morality, supported by the Darwinian theory for life’s origin, meaning, and purpose, represents one of the greatest evils of our time.**  A focus upon the danger to American liberty can be narrowed to those who are at the seat of the problem—secular militarists.

*The soft sciences include literature, journalism, education strategies, political science, life-origins biology, life-origins geology, history, law studies, religion, social studies, arts, psychology and ecology.

**Charles Darwin published his theory for a God-rejecting worldview in the book The Origin of Species, published in 1859.  There is some adaptation within species, but the Herculean efforts of science pretenders to find evolution between species fail.  Sir Arthur Keith, a leading evolutionist has written:  “Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable” (Sir Arthur Keith, as citation in Wallie A. Criswell’s Did Man Just Happen? Grand Rapids MI:  Zondervan, 1972, p. 73).  D. M. S. Watson acknowledged the same in Nature, vol. 124, August 10, 1929, pp. 231-234. 

 

Secular_day

 

 

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris
Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:46:00 -0800 A Conservative's Tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev http://davidanorris.posterous.com/a-conservatives-tribute-to-mikhail-gorbachev http://davidanorris.posterous.com/a-conservatives-tribute-to-mikhail-gorbachev

That the God of creation is man’s benefactor is so foundational it cannot be arrived at by any other proposition.  It is the basic principle upon which all other principles follow.  When man chooses to walk according to God’s benevolent law, he learns of the power that is God’s alone and by which God grants him victory over evil.

Those who persist in the fantasy of revisionist morality (moral relativism) and a central government that compromises the people’s right to be fully informed have, in fact, ignored the irreversible laws of creation’s nature.  When liberal majorities on the Supreme Court and secular educators fail to uphold the God-honoring predicate of the US Constitution, they are, in effect, empowering atheistic revisionism that preys on societies.

At a United Nations forum, December 7, 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev, atheist leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, repudiated the atheistic dogma shared by Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.  Reflecting upon the disintegration of the secular (progressive) system, Gorbachev said:  “The compelling necessity of the principle of freedom of choice is … clear to us.  The failure to recognize this … is fraught with very dire consequences ... Freedom of choice is a universal principle to which there should be no exceptions.  We have not come to the conclusion of the immutability of this principle simply through good motives.  We have been led to it through impartial analysis of the objective processes of our time.  This objective fact presupposes respect for other people’s views“ (George P. Schultz, Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, Turmoil and Triumph, New York:  Macmillan, 1993, p. 1107).

Failure to acknowledge the benevolent laws of God and conform to moral truth guarantees harmful consequences.  Gorbachev tried to prevent its collapse by relaxing socialistic rule.  To do this, he adopted perestroika and glasnost (which allowed the people to be informed and free to communicate) and property rights, but socialism had gone too far.  Beginning in 1989, the puppet Communist governments in captive countries controlled by the Soviets were overthrown by the people.  The Soviet Union fell apart when captive countries quit sending them the revenue required to keep the socialist economy afloat.

Gorbechev

Writing of perestroika, Gorbachev’s wife Raisa said:  “Our society has set out on the path of renewal and of demolishing totalitarianism and the obsolete command system of administering the country” (Raisa Gorbachev, Reminiscences and Reflections, Harper Collins, 1991, p. 174).

Whether or not Gorbachev realized it, the Soviet empire was being forced to acknowledge that those who reject the “sovereignty of man under God over government” run into the immutable laws of creation’s nature.  Those laws support life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  In contrast, the vacillating laws of man lead to exploitation, cultural decay, poverty, and tyranny.  When God’s benevolent provision is rejected in any particular, the rejecter bears the price of that sin against himself and the will of God.  

 

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/1297223/author.jpg http://posterous.com/users/hcGCjfx1z9wx4 David A. Norris davidanorris David A. Norris