Here's something I never thought I would type: Barack Obama gets it, and Glenn Beck doesn't seem to.

During his recent interview with 60 Minutes, Obama was asked by CBS reporter Steve Kroft how the president sized up the field of Republicans vying to be his opponent in 2012.  Obama's answer was candid and refreshingly accurate: "It doesn't really matter who the nominee is gonna be," he said. "The core philosophy that they're expressing is the same. And the contrast in visions between where I want to take the country and what-- where they say they want to take the country is gonna be stark."

The president couldn't be more right in that assessment - a reality that I think is lost on many of us who are political junkies.  Those for whom the world of politics is either our livelihood or at least an obsessive hobby, we tend to view issues through a different lens and apply a level of detailed inspection to them that average citizens simply do not. 

For instance, my wife and I watched the recent Republican presidential debate in Iowa together.  She cares about her country and the direction it's going, but she's not the least bit interested in following the day to day drama of the presidential horse race.  In fact, this was the first primary debate she has seen this year.

As the debate was unfolding, I noticed a remarkable difference in the way we perceived it.  I was being hypercritical of certain responses or question dodging, yet she was constantly saying things like, "That was a good point," or "I like him," or "He knows his stuff."  When the debate was over, her comment was, "This is going to be hard, isn't it?"  But contrary to the media template that has emerged about the "epically weak Republican field," she didn't mean it was going to be hard trying to figure out which one of those jokers could possibly compete with Obama.  No, when I asked her to clarify she said, "It's going to be hard to figure out which one of them to support when they all are so much better than what we've got."  Bingo.

While I was obsessing over the trivial differences in style or the substantive conflicts of specific policy between the candidates, my wife was looking at the big picture - each of those Republican candidates represented a marked departure from the Obama regime.  And dare I say she is much more reflective of the hundreds of millions of eligible voters who will head to the polls next year?

That reality is what makes Glenn Beck's recent comments so perplexing.  Set aside the silly proposition that a Tea Partier who supports Gingrich over Obama is only doing so because of race.  I attribute that nonsense to a frustrated Beck trying to draw attention to Newt's progressive proclivities, rather than an honest indictment of a large swath of the population with whom he shares mutual respect and admiration.  But Beck's underlying assumption that a President Gingrich (or Romney to a slightly lesser degree) would be replicas of President Obama is mystifying.  And his further suggestion that he would consider a third party alternative to Gingrich is beyond irresponsible given that it all but ensures a second term of the very man Beck has rightly castigated as leading our country into the abyss.

As a man of integrity, I can only assume that Beck is charting this course based on principle.  Fair enough.  But as an admirer of Beck who recognizes the profound influence he wields on the right, I humbly ask what principle does he hold that makes throwing Israel under the bus the best option? What principle does Beck hold that makes continuing to expand the practice of legalized child killing the proper decision? What principle does Beck hold that makes the implementation and ingraining of ObamaCare into the fabric of our society a more noble choice?

Conservatives would be well advised to make the case for their candidate in this primary and promote them vigorously, while keeping in perspective what even the President himself understands: that all six of the individuals on the recent Republican debate stage represent a fundamental shift in philosophy from the current occupant of the White House. 

Considering that Americans are now facing double the gas prices since Obama took office, almost double the unemployment from what it was the majority of Bush's terms, double the debt, double the deficit, four times as many foreign countries under the thumb of the Muslim Brotherhood, fewer staunch allies who trust us, one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, more Americans than ever on food stamps, and the looming threat of a dramatic uptick in job loss as the president's own signature "accomplishment" from his first term (ObamaCare) is fully implemented, that's a reality that every conservative - including Glenn Beck - should be shouting from the rooftops.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

Veteran White House correspondent Lester Kingsolving had the temerity to ask the question: "Does the Commander-in-Chief approve or disapprove of bestiality in our armed forces?"  I could be mistaken, but I am guessing this is the first time the subject of human sex with animals ever came up at the daily White House press briefing.  Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney made it clear he was sincerely unimpressed with the question, condescendingly brushing it off by scolding, "I don't have any comment on that...let's get to something more serious."

Shock value aside, it's a reasonable question given that the liberal Democrats in the United States Senate managed to tuck an amendment into the recent defense appropriations bill that would repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which states, "Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy."  If Jay Carney finds the issue to be unserious, he should have taken the opportunity to harpoon members of the president's own party who authored the repeal rather than the reporter who merely asked about it.

It's fair to assume that the intended purpose of those seeking the repeal of Article 125 was far more about legalizing human sodomy than it was about giving the green light to bestiality.  Repealing the ban on intimate sexual contact between practicing homosexuals is merely the next logical step after having opened the military door to them.  The President made repealing the ban on open homosexuality his major order of business regarding the American armed forces.  His rationale was that it was discriminatory to prohibit those with different sexual preferences, inclinations and attractions from serving their country with pride.  But if that's the case, then what is the logical distinction that can be drawn by those same "civil rights champions" to deny such an opportunity to those who are sexually attracted to animals?  Why make them "lie about who they are?"

Typically when this question is posed to liberals, they offer the same "you've got to be kidding" reaction that Kingsolving received.  But noticeably absent from their snickering, jeering and scoffing dismissals is any form of a coherent response to the question.  If the answer is so obvious, let's hear it.  What makes a liberal who sits in moral judgment of another person's sexual attraction to animals any less bigoted and discriminatory than a conservative who sits in moral judgment of a person's attraction to members of the same sex?  What is the standard that is used?

A similar philosophical challenge can be made in the realm of pedophilia.   Around the same time the bestiality story broke, disgraced former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky granted an on-camera interview to the New York Times where he acknowledged to the reporter that he was, "attracted to [young] boys and girls."  As socially unacceptable as it may be, that doesn't change the fact that it's his preferred sexual experience.  And Sandusky is far from alone.

For years, pedophiles have testified to the fact that they are sexually aroused by young children in a way that they just don't find elsewhere.  Given the left's prohibition on "judging," where does that leave us with men like Sandusky?

Let me clarify this point: I am not suggesting that homosexuality and pedophilia are equivalent. They are not. Nor do I believe that they should be treated identically under the criminal law. Homosexual participants are typically consenting adults, while pedophilia usually involves an unwilling and victimized child. Therefore, child molesting involves a degree of sexual abuse that homosexuality does not encompass.

That stipulated, the left must explain how they can consider it ethical to sit in judgment of the sexual predilections of a self-described MAP (minor-attracted person) while they piously forbid others to sit in judgment of those of an LGBT.  Liberals have preached for decades that one does not "choose" their sexual appetite or preference. They have told us that it is bigoted and hateful to delegitimize or discriminate against another's natural sexual penchants, whether or not we personally share their urges. 

So Jay Carney's arrogance notwithstanding, Kingsolving's question was not an outrageous one after all.  For the sake of clarity and sanity, it is time that the left be required to declare the standard by which they seek to define our society's sexual norms.  What of a military man who wants to copulate with an animal, or of a pedophile who is attracted to young children?  Are those feelings natural?  Must they be respected?  Were they born that way?  If not, does that not contradict everything the left has been preaching?  Or if so, how can liberal progressives possibly condemn them without violating the very standard of bigotry they have been beating conservatives up with for a generation? 

No wonder Carney took a pass.

In the first Thanksgiving address given by an American President, George Washington encouraged his fellow citizens in 1789 to join him in, "acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."  Clearly demonstrating an equal grasp on the gravity and meaning of such an occasion, current U.S. President Barack Obama followed in Washington's footsteps by calling this generation of Americans to a day of, "eating great food, watching a little football, and reflecting on how truly lucky we are."  Quick, grab a tablet of stone and chisel in that pellet of eternal insight before it escapes our mortal consciences.

Perhaps the comparison is unfair given that Obama did issue a written statement that thanked God for, "the many kindnesses and comforts that grace our lives."  Nonetheless, conservative critics pounced, observing that the same President who never misses the opportunity to host an Iftar dinner and extemporaneously proclaim the great benevolence of the God of Islam, just totally blanks on the magnanimity of the Judeo-Christian God amidst the very holiday our people have historically set aside to honor Him for His blessings.

Fox News columnist Todd Starnes fired the first volley, noting that the president's, "remarks were void of any religious references although Thanksgiving is a holiday traditionally steeped in giving thanks and praise to God."  From there a bevy of right leaning commentators attacked the president for his sin of omission.  Might I humbly suggest that a more meaningful critique of the President's speech should focus less on what he didn't say, and more on what he did?

To posit, as President Obama did, that the great prosperity of the United States is the consequence of "luck" is as controversial and radical as anything this president has said during his time in the national spotlight.  Yes, as controversial as proclaiming Israel should go back to its pre-1967 boundaries.  Yes, as radical as suggesting that knowing whether or not to defend the unalienable right to life was above his pay grade.

Because in a very real way, this comment puts the entire presidency of Barack Obama into context.  It starts making sense out of the muddled picture we have had of Obama and piecing together the fragments of a larger worldview that has been shadowed by the meaningless media caricatures of the man. 

Taken by itself, crediting luck as the source of American greatness could perhaps be excused as a slip of the tongue or a lazy retreat behind a tired rhetorical cliché.  But when placed in context and added to other previously isolated statements into a combined symphony of thought, it explains why the president seems so uncomfortable and confused when asked about American exceptionalism.  It explains why he obstinately omits reference to the Creator God as the source of man's rights when quoting from the American Declaration of Independence.  It explains why he frequently seems ashamed of American preeminence, feeling obligated to prostrate himself before foreign leaders or apologize profusely for our national sins - real or imagined.  It explains both a foreign and domestic policy designed to relegate America to the role of world participant rather than world leader.

President Obama misunderstands the significance of American greatness because he misappropriates its foundational source.  In his secular socialist worldview, America's riches were not the reward from One whom Abraham Lincoln called the, "beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."  They were not the result of a national obedience to the Natural Lawgiver, nor the consequence of a national commitment to conform to the timeless truths of His moral order.

No, to the man who is now the face of the free world, they were nothing more than the byproduct of an advantageous roll of the civilizational dice.  If a transcendent being was involved, it was only to spin the globe blindfolded and un-ceremonially plop its finger down randomly on the United States, instigating a flood of prosperity that was no more purposeful than it was deserved. 

That is why, in Obama's mind, there is nothing more exceptional about America than Britain or Greece; why we have no right to admonish the human rights atrocities occurring with impunity in China; why America should presume to hold no position of moral superiority in our dealings with foreign thugs and tyrannies; why our time is better spent apologizing for our arrogance than recommitting ourselves to the glorious truths of our founding.  And it's why food and football are just as likely to cross his lips on Thanksgiving as is the One to whom we have, at the direction of presidents far greater than Barack Obama, historically rendered thanks.

If anything, this unfortunate episode reminds us of why Thanksgiving 2012 will offer a brand new reason for national gratitude.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

Commenting on the merry-go-round of presidential front runners occurring within the Republican Party, MSNBC's Chris Matthews delivered an imbecilic rant so bizarre that the only thing it explained was why his program trails Cartoon Network in the ratings.  It was Matthews' dazzling deduction that the elevation of certain candidates to the top of the heap, only to see them fade and drift back down in the polls, was a clear indication that the Republicans had a "hate problem."  With an extra dose of crazy, Matthews unloaded: "Their brains racked as they are by hatred, they lack the like mode. They are in no mood looking around for a politician they like. The hating is so much more satisfying."

Matthews' false indictment is a perfect case study in the classic psychological condition known as projection.  It is his hatred of Republicans, demonstrable by the little pockets of froth foaming at the sides of his mouth whenever he speaks of men like Newt Gingrich, that causes him to come to such an inexplicable conclusion.  After all, far from hating the candidates vying for the Republican nomination, most every conservative voter can attest to appreciating characteristics in each of them.

What Matthews is misdiagnosing is a process known as vetting a candidate.  Conservatives are testing the mettle of their potential nominees to see who is best prepared to take control of a country in Obama-induced chaos; chaos which ironically has occurred because Chris Matthews and his fellow liberals did not take time to do what they now chastise Republicans for doing - vet the remarkably thin resume and radical roots of the man they backed for the presidency.

But as long as the merry-go-round sequence continues for the right, having cycled through the surge of Trump, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and now Paul and Gingrich, is it too much to ask for former Senator Rick Santorum to get a day in the sun?  While his tone at some of the debates has been unnecessarily caustic - something that could be attributed to the nature of the very few questions he actually gets to respond to - there isn't a candidate on the stage that has a more solidly conservative resume than Santorum.

In a recent profile piece highlighting the case for Santorum, Quin Hillyer asks, "could it be that the sharpest, most accomplished, most campaign-savvy, and most full-spectrum conservative in a quarter-century of presidential contests has been in the contest all along, working harder than anybody, making at least as much intellectual sense as anybody, never blowing a debate, and never failing to stand on principle?"  Without getting too carried away, Hillyer has a point, particularly with his last observation. 

When it comes to standing on principle, it's Santorum in a walk.

For all that the "conservatarian" Ron Paul types will say about Paul's devotion to small government, only Rick Santorum demonstrates a full recognition that the only way small government is possible is if our culture boasts strong families.  The way to accomplish that end is not to take the libertarian, hands-off, anything-goes philosophy towards morality in the public square.

And in terms of debt reduction, it was Rick Santorum who unabashedly and unapologetically embraced Paul Ryan's bold spending reform package when other presidential hopefuls like Newt Gingrich were casting a skeptical eye.

And while Herman Cain was confusing everybody regarding his stance on abortion (see the "I don't believe it's the government's place to decide... so the government should make it illegal" mindbender), it was Rick Santorum who articulated the only "pro-life" position that even makes sense: no exceptions.  When challenged on that principled stance in an early debate as to why he wouldn't allow abortions in the case of rape, Santorum gave a response that no pro-abortion advocate can possibly rebut: "The Supreme Court of the Unites States, on a recent case, said that a man who committed rape could not be...subject to the death penalty?yet the child conceived as a result of that rape could be. That to me sounds like a country that doesn't have its morals correct."  Game, set, match.

Maybe this is why radio phenomenon Glenn Beck recently suggested that Rick Santorum could be the next George Washington.  And while I regard any comparison to the Father of the Nation an exaggeration, Beck's point is that in a generation full of soundbite-obsessed, pandering politicians, Santorum is a man of honor.  That distinction alone should earn him a chance in the spotlight.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

On the surface, I suppose it does sound incredible: they created a monument to honor an influential Baptist minister and they omitted any reference to God or Jesus in the featured quotations throughout the memorial.  The monument in question, of course, is the recently unveiled tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C.  That would be "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to be precise. 

Perhaps the argument is that Biblical references were rejected because the memorial was to focus not on his work as a pastor, but rather as a civil rights crusader.  But then again, to Dr. King, the two were inseparable.  It was his faith in Jesus Christ, his belief in transcendent Moral Authority, and his allegiance to Divine Law that motivated his activism.  Not to mention that his civil rights speeches were peppered with Scriptural references as the justification for his positions. 

Take the famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" where King explained that, "A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law."  The entire foundation for the King civil rights movement was predicated upon the existence of the Biblical God and His eternal justice.  Conversely, the entire foundation of the secular left today is predicated upon the non-existence of the Biblical God and the acceptance of moral relativism.  Therefore, it is not surprising that the modern liberal voices who have hijacked King's movement designed a tribute to him that ignored that which was most pivotal to his cause. 

Commenting on this duplicity, Dr. Jerry Newcombe explained that, "one of the aspects of political correctness that is plaguing our times is that the elites think that all references to God and Jesus have to be expunged from all public places." 

While I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Newcombe, I think this particular example goes a bit deeper.  I think it's clear that the purpose of this monument was to further imbed into our national psyche a caricature of Dr. King that the left has been creating for the last few decades.  By scandalously projecting their own modern liberal interpretations of ?social justice' onto him, they have redesigned King to fit the mold of a secular humanist warrior.  We shouldn't be surprised then that the monument they created in his honor omitted the things that were most important to him.  Their objective was never to celebrate the legacy of the real Dr. King - who he was, what he believed and what he did - given that those things contradict who they are, what they believe, and what they are trying to do. 

And you don't have to look to a stone sculpture to be able to understand that reality.  One of the self-proclaimed heirs to the King mantle, Jesse Jackson, recently suggested that the antics of the Occupy Wall Street protestors in Atlanta were, "an extension of the struggle for civil rights" initiated by King.  How outrageous.  How in the world can the peaceful non-violence strategy applied by Dr. King in the effort to achieve equal justice under the law possibly be tied to the violent, social upheaval produced by citizens who already have equal justice but are seeking equal outcomes through forced government redistribution (aka socialism)?

Jackson's false comparison is only slightly less offensive than those who claim to see a connection between Dr. King's street prayer vigils and the grown men prancing around American city streets in tutus and G-strings, flinging pixie dust and condoms at their gay pride parades.  King preached fidelity to Biblical morality, something eschewed by the sexual anarchists of the left.

This reinvention of Dr. King by liberals is not without consequence.  While King dreamed of the day when ours was a colorblind society, the left seems intent on bringing color into every political discussion.  In just the last two years, liberals have used race to condemn the right for their opposition to high unemployment, increased debt, stimulus spending, climate change policies, the occupy Wall Street protests, and for the mere observation that food stamp usage has skyrocketed under President Obama.  And when conservatives reasonably objected to such silly accusations, liberals pitifully declared that denying racism is actually a potent form of racism.  Beyond maddening, while the left continues making more out of the color of a man's skin than the content of his character, Dr. King's dream slips further and further beyond our grasp.

It stands to reason that if we invert our understanding of who King was, we will fail to achieve his lofty and admirable vision of racial harmony and brotherhood.  That's a far bigger problem than just a Godless statue.

This column was first published on The American Thinker.

Just as Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain predicted, he has become the most recent victim of the race-baiting left's high-tech lynching of prominent, conservative black men.  Days before the Cain sexual harassment smear emerged from the sewers of liberal trash journalism, MSNBC's Martin Bashir hosted contributor Karen Finney who proclaimed that conservatives only liked Cain because, "they think he's a black man who knows his place."   As Bashir actually thanked her on-air for making such an offensive and ignorant remark (far from being a submissive position, conservatives are supporting Cain in his effort to ascend to the highest office in the land), Finney granted, "I know that's harsh, but that's how it sure seems to me."

That's an interesting moment of candor since it now sure seems to any American paying attention that Finney and her fellow liberals dislike Cain because they think he's a black man who doesn't know his place.  Diversity of thought amongst minorities - particularly blacks - is forbidden in the church of liberalism.  Having constructed their entire political kingdom on the back of the dollars-for-votes dependency model, self-made black men who stray from the liberal plantation and threaten to carry the empowering message of personal (not government) reliance to throngs of minorities currently under the left's spell of entitlement, must be dealt with severely.  Destroying them professionally and personally is a small price to pay to keep the plantation thriving.

And so, with that greater good in mind, four lily white liberals (Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel) authored a hit piece on the prominent conservative businessman in a desperate attempt to smear him out of contention for the Republican presidential nomination.  This gutter politics is proof positive of what I've held for a long time: if you want to catch a modern day glimpse of old school white-on-black racism, behold the way white liberals treat black conservatives.

The racial motivations in this particular story cannot be missed.  This is, after all, the same political movement that scolded anyone who dared suggest that the serial infidelity and alleged sexual assaults committed by white liberal Bill Clinton were relevant to his pursuit of the presidency. 

And this is the same political movement that was so disinterested in the adultery of white liberal John Edwards who fathered a child with a campaign worker while his wife was losing her fight with cancer, that the National Enquirer tabloid out-scooped them.  And even as late as June of this year, while Edwards faced criminal indictment for his attempts to illegally cover-up the scandal, fellow white liberals like Chris Matthews continued to defend him, suggesting that his prosecution was, "one of those [politically motivated] things you read about in third world countries."

And this is the same political movement that yawned at the sexual predilections and cell phone dalliances of white liberal Anthony Weiner, eagerly defending him from the "savagery" of conservative media types like Andrew Breitbart.

Yet this same movement that had to catapult themselves over mountains of evidence in order to ignore the indiscretions of those white liberals enthusiastically skewered a black conservative based on the flimsy and unsubstantiated testimony of undisclosed sources.  The case against Cain was so weak that after bringing the accusation, the lead author of the smear, white liberal Jonathan Martin, hilariously suggested on national television that it was Cain's responsibility - not his - to explain the accusation.  This embarrassing performance didn't earn him skepticism and scorn from his fellow white liberals like Chris Matthews.  Rather, Matthews congratulated him on breaking the story.

Martin's colleague at the now forever tarnished website Politico, Mike Allen, only added to the pathetic transparency of this racial attack when he appeared on another MSNBC program, "Morning Joe."  Asked if Politico could cite any evidence beyond the allegation that Cain had made gestures "that were not overtly sexual but that made women uncomfortable," Allen ecstatically announced that their story had, "48,000 mentions" on the social media rumor mill Twitter.  The anatomy of a smear: the evidence is irrelevant...all that matters is that the accusation spreads.

The attack on Cain certainly isn't the first of its kind.  The original high-tech lynching of conservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas for the same stereotypical allegations, the constant attacks on "Uncle Tom" economists Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams, the belligerent nastiness directed at self-proclaimed welfare brat turned conservative champion Star Parker, and the persistent threats faced by tea-party Congressman Allen West all stand as stark depictions of the regard liberals have for blacks who dare to think differently than them.

If nothing else, at least we now know what PBS's Tavis Smiley meant several months ago when he promised this election would be "the most racist in the history of this Republic."  The left is seeing to that. 

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

One can fairly imagine that as the now iconic photograph of the Occupy Wall Street protestor defecating on the side of a police car emerged, it surely created a pretty tense meeting of Barack Obama's political advisers.  You need not be a seasoned politico to know that overtly embracing a movement that is characterized by chants of "long live socialism" and "f*** the USA," syringe wielding maniacs threatening to infect everyone with AIDS, and speakers who call for a bloody, French revolution style Reign of Terror or who proclaim an unalienable right to have sex with animals, might not be the shrewdest move for a president who already suffers from the public perception of incompetence and immaturity.  Yet that's exactly what President Obama did, inexplicably, just a couple weeks ago.

Damage control commenced almost immediately with David Axelrod going on ABC's This Week to clarify that the part of Occupy Wall Street Obama agrees with is not the sexual anarchy and the public defecation, but rather the anti-greed strain espoused by a majority of the street dwellers.  The White House then embarked on another armored bus tour through the key state of North Carolina attempting to portray a culture war between the right's forces of greed and his altruistic brand of liberal redistribution.

This tactical political strategy is fatally flawed, however.  What is greed, after all, if it is not a moral problem?  And what political movement has committed itself over the last half century to a rigorous eradication of morality from the public square?  What political movement has championed the abandonment of Natural Law precedent in our courts?  What political movement has warred against public displays of religious virtue?  What political movement has vehemently protested the public embrace of an absolute, Real Morality by our elected leaders?  What political movement has sought to purge public school classrooms and curriculum of any acknowledgement of a personal accountability to some transcendent, eternal moral authority?  If there is a greed problem on Wall Street, Main Street, or any street, far from complaining about it, the left has no one to blame but itself.  It has been decades-old demands of liberals to abandon our Judeo-Christian morality that has bred and fostered the very self-indulgence they now seek to condemn.

Perhaps if these Wall Street malcontents would have spent a little less time intoxicating themselves on the potent cocktail of Marx and Alinsky and a little more time reading the words of our Founding Fathers, we wouldn't be in this mess.  Founders like John Adams who warned, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by religion and morality.  Avarice (greed), ambition...would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net."  In other words, the recipe for gluttonous corruption is not free markets or capitalism alone...but rather free markets and capitalism unrestrained by moral virtue.  It's why Adams saw it as the government's role to be about "the promotion of that morality and piety without which social happiness cannot exist nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed." 

But liberals knew better.  The seed of disassociation between faith and the public square that they sowed over a generation ago is now coming into full bloom.  As C.S. Lewis once characterized, they have made men without chests, and yet expect of them honor and virtue.  Moreover, in a perfect depiction of their own moral confusion, notice the suggested remedy to our greed problem that these leftists collectively advance: they rally in the streets demanding that government play the role of Robin Hood - steal from those with wealth and redistribute it to the rest of us.  In other words, they answer greed with greed, practicing the very self-indulgence they protest.

If the Occupy Wall Street folks - or anyone else for that matter - are truly concerned about an increasingly greedy culture, they should recognize it is one of the potential pitfalls of a free society. It's a risk that comes with the ability to succeed and prosper and can only be prevented in one of two ways: either by an oppressive state that will destroy the incentive to excel and thus spread misery (as every socialist regime has done throughout world history), or by embracing and promoting a public virtue based on Judeo-Christian ethics.

Conservatives like me would follow the wisdom of our Founders and choose the latter.  But as the chants of "long live socialism" echo through our streets, it appears certain that the left and their instigator-in-chief will not.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

The left is beginning to panic, and with good reason.  Despite the misery of Barack Obama's presidential record, those who were his fellow travelers on the road to "fundamentally transforming America" always felt that they held a trump card in their back pocket come November 2012.  And they made no effort to hide their intention to use it. 

Notorious race-baiter Tavis Smiley of PBS bragged to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell in April of this year that, "this presidential race...[is] going to be the ugliest, the nastiest, the most divisive, and the most racist in the history of this Republic."  Before the Republican presidential field had even been settled, no less a nominee been chosen, liberals like Smiley exhibited no hesitation about asserting that skin color was going to be the dominant issue of the campaign.  Never mind that Barack Obama had captured a larger percentage of white votes than either Al Gore in 2000 or John Kerry in 2004, and that by any fair analysis, his racial diversity helped him in his bid for the presidency far more than it hurt him.  None of that was going to deter liberals in their quest to ensure Obama a second term based on his racial qualification alone.

If Smiley was right - that this election cycle would be the most racist in our history - it should have been clear that was because his fellow liberals were determined to make it such, finding racism in the most bizarre and benign of places.  Take Ed Schultz's recent accusation that Republican opposition to the Occupy Wall Street protesters - a group that by most accounts could be considered lily white - was based on a "problem with race."  Or consider Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson's mindless smears that those who rationally object to Obama having run up more debt in three years than every president from George Washington to George H.W. Bush combined, were really motivated by a desire to "get the black man out of office."  It's pretty clear to see that liberals had embraced a "no bridge too far, no logic too tortured" policy on crying racism.

But the surging candidacy of charismatic Republican businessman Herman Cain has caused the confident poker face of the left to begin to crack.  As the rags-to-riches personal testimony of this self-made black man resonates in the ears of the inner city poor who for too long have been told that they need handouts from white liberals in order to survive, the once imposing race card is losing its luster for the jokers who clutch it in their increasingly sweaty and shaky hands.

After all, how credible is the charge of white-on-black racism against a movement that is touting a black man as their standard bearer?  For the answer, venture into the dark recesses of cable television to find Al Gore's Current TV network (by the way, how much of a carbon footprint does running a television station leave these days?).  Back in August, Keith Olbermann hosted alleged comedian Janeane Garofalo, one of the few D-listers for whom an invite to come on "Countdown" is actually still alluring.  Asked about Cain's popularity within the Republican Party, Garofalo demonstrated the perilous state of the liberal race canard by brilliantly concluding that, "Herman Cain...is being paid by somebody to be involved and to run for president," in order to deflect charges of racism made against the right.  When prodded, she envisioned Karl Rove sitting behind his Dr. Evil control panel and funding this Cain charade.

There is, of course, only one significant problem with her explanation.  Even if we went on a Garofalo acid trip and assumed Rove was funding Cain's candidacy, what accounts for hoards of racist tea partiers and conservatives supporting him?  Perhaps the Koch brothers are paying all of them too?

Here's the scary reality for the left: the right's opposition to Obama has always been predicated upon his bad policies and not upon his race.  The ascension of Herman Cain proves that to be the case.  Conservatives didn't mind a black president.they just didn't want a socialist one.  Cain still has a long road to travel, to be sure.  But should he win the nomination, the left's best hope for distracting from Obama's failed record as a steward of the country's economy goes by the wayside.

What will remain is a side-by-side comparison of two remarkably different men.  One who preaches the necessity of government dependency versus the other whose life proves the superiority of self-reliance and personal responsibility...one who seeks to fundamentally transform America, the other who fundamentally embodies America.

A Cain nomination means the presidential race becomes about message rather than melanin.  That's a competition the left knows they won't win.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

It appears that thanks to the Obama administration, our great national nightmare may finally be coming to a close. 

Now, don't be confused.   By national nightmare I am not referring to something as petty as our culture's nearly 40 year old abolition of the unalienable right to life for those deemed inconvenient or unplanned, or something as inconsequential as the breakdown of the family unit and the moral decay that has come as a consequence.  Nor am I talking about the child's play that is the ongoing threat of radical Islam and its war against Western civilization.  And just stop with the silliness about our relentless unemployment crisis and stagnating economy.  I'm talking about the big stuff here.

Word has emerged that President Obama is finally taking steps to protect the melodic golden-winged warbler.  It appears that he was the one that we'd been waiting for after all.

With his finger firmly on the pulse of what is most concerning to Americans, the president has announced that he will soon be extending endangered species status (and the requisite mountain of rules and regulations that accompany the designation) to a list of over 500 plants and animal species.  And besides being great news for the soon-to-be-protected slow-moving Gopher tortoise, this move will undoubtedly benefit a national economy already stunted by oppressive bureaucratic micromanagement.

One can fairly imagine how much easier life is about to get for the people of Hawaii, for instance, when they receive new federal guides on how to identify the 99 new native plants they must avoid trampling or trimming.

And though Americans will be initially alarmed to know that the giant Palouse earthworm of Idaho and Utah Gila monster did not make the cut, the Obama administration is assuring that all rejections are subject to court challenge.  Thank heavens!  It's about time our under-worked court system had something of substance to engage.

In all seriousness, this news should provoke two primary questions in the minds of serious Americans.  First, is there any stronger indictment of our oversized and bloated federal government than the fact that it pays hundreds of individuals to study and evaluate the breeding proficiency of 35 different kinds of snails in Nevada's Great Basin?  In the midst of an epic fiscal crisis in the country, should it really take the commissioning of an unconstitutional Super Committee in Congress to be able to pinpoint areas of the federal budget to eliminate when examples like this abound?

That's not to say that we can balance our books as a country simply by slashing funds for the Fish and Wildlife Service alone.  But it is to say that the only hope for balancing our books comes when we're willing to ask whether it is the proper role of the federal government to even operate a Fish and Wildlife Service in the first place.

Call me a cynic, but I can't imagine George Washington holding cabinet meetings with Alexander Hamilton to discuss the energetic and vital action the national government needed to take in protecting crawfish (82 different kinds in the Southeast alone have been tagged by Team Obama as imperiled).  Yet today we manage to convince ourselves that we are doing a disservice to mankind if we don't have some government agency designing a complex tiered system for evaluating the endangered status of the most obscure creatures in the country.   

But the second question this whole issue engenders is even more fundamental and even more concerning.  What does it say about the ethics of our country when the slimy American eel and the tiny Texas kangaroo rat (both on the new endangered list) receive greater legal protection than full term baby human beings?  What does it say about a president who is willing and eager to mete out harsh fines and penalties for those who callously pollute the habitat of beetles, yet who works diligently to facilitate and abet those who pitilessly invade the sanctuary of the human womb to intentionally kill their fellow man?

What it says is that far from progressing towards a James Cameron-esque environmental utopia like Pandora, we are slouching perilously close to the moral degeneracy of Gomorrah.  And time is running out to reverse course.

This column was first published at The American Thinker.

For those of us committed to the fight of saving Western Civilization from collapse, stories like the one that recently emerged from West Palm Beach, Florida are not reassuring.  It seems that Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana, the parents of a young disabled boy named Bryan Santana, have received a $4.5 million court victory over a doctor and ultrasound technician they accused of malpractice.

What makes this story uniquely disturbing is the alleged offense of the two medical professionals.  According to the Palm Beach Post, "[The parents] claimed they would have never have brought Bryan into the world had they known about his horrific disabilities... the West Palm Beach couple said they would have terminated the pregnancy."  In other words, since Bryan was born with only one limb, his life isn't woth as much as if he had all of them.  Therefore, the doctor and ultrasound tech are responsible for Bryan being alive rather than in a trash bin, and so they should have to pay for him.

The $4.5 million decision is half of what the parents requested, allegedly to help pay for Bryan's lifetime medical costs.  That two individuals could be so shameless as to even publicly attach their names to a lawsuit of this nature, that our court system would even hear such a case, and that a jury of citizens would disgracefully reward them with anything but a callous lecture on their own moral degeneracy, amount to a shocking commentary on how far our culture has fallen in terms of its respect for the value of human life.

Imagine for a second 8 years down the road when Bryan, bound to a wheelchair but otherwise functioning and interacting as a typical pre-teen boy, gets into an argument with one of his friends.  Without thinking, his friend shouts out something like, "Yeah, well, at least my parents wanted me!"  Perplexed, Bryan does a little digging and question-asking, and he eventually finds out that his parents were so upset at the thought of having to deal with him as he was, they would have preferred to kill him.  How many of the left's cherished "self-esteem" classes will Bryan have to sit through to overcome that devastation?

For its part, the Palm Beach Post editorialized against the lawsuit.  Andrew Marra wrote for the paper, "The problem with their lawsuit is its premise that their son is more flawed or somehow worse than a person with four fully formed limbs... Certainly, Bryan will face challenges that few have to consider, and that is tragic. Whether these obstacles mean his life is not worth living should be up to him to decide, not to Ms. Mejia and a jury of her peers."

While Marra is barking up the right tree, he doesn't take his condemnation of this case far enough.  After all, there is nothing logically different about what Mejia and Santana are saying than what the left has said for years about the whole right to choose abortion.  Why should we be surprised when two people say that their son's physical disabilities make him unworthy to live?  For years we have been condoning the left's lie that an inconvenient child can be killed legally - so why not a handicapped one?  Surely if the financial burden, emotional strain or psychological stress caused by an unplanned pregnancy is enough to justify abortion, the kind of grief provoked by finding out your child will face physical challenges should be as well, right?

What we are witnessing in this case is the logical end of the moral relativistic rubbish that our entire abortion culture is based on.  Consider the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey that saw the U.S. Supreme Court attempting to provide some moral clarity to the muddled mess that the infamous Roe v. Wade had left in its wake.  Their pitiful effort shows that even when given almost 20 years to come up with a better explanation for the gruesome practice, the brightest legal minds can't offer anything beyond a self-defeating quagmire of personal preferences.

The Court opined that, "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."  And with as intellectually vapid and logically flawed as that mammoth definition of liberty is, it isn't difficult to figure out why we are experiencing the kind of moral decay that is represented by this "wrongful birth" case.  Parents Mejia and Santana's "concept of existence" involves a sliding scale of humanity's worth: those who they define as "normal" are more valuable and worthy of life than those who aren't.  They are merely "defining the meaning of human existence" to be predicated upon what an individual can do for society.

Therein lays the problem.  We can and should recoil in disgust at such brazen acts of selfishness as preferring to kill your handicapped child than care for them.  But until we eliminate the moral relativism that triggers those acts and replace it with the Judeo-Christian truth that life is valuable not for what it does, but what it is, we should only anticipate more of the same.

This column first appeared on The American Thinker.