Pastor's Blog

I have just started reading Mark Levin's new book, Ameritopia . His thesis is that a desire to build a utopian society is the justification for totalitarian government. In his own words, "Utopianism is the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism." "Utopianism substitutes glorius predictions and unachievable promises for knowledge, science, and reason, while laying claim to them all. Yet there is nothing new in deception disguised as hope and nothing original in abstraction framed as progress. A heavenly society is said to be within reach if only the individual surrenders more of his liberty and being for the general good, meaning the good as prescribed by the state. If he refuses, he will be tormented and ultimately coerced into compliance, for conformity is essential. Indeed, nothing good can come of self-interest, which is condemned as morally indefensible and empty. Through persuasion, deceit, and coercion, the individual must be stripped of his identi...

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Skimming the headlines over at Newsmax.com, my eyes alighted on this: Report Urges Bailout to Preserve Journalism . "Yikes!" methinks to myself. "Could it really be?" And so I clicked the headline to read the story: NEW YORK -- Journalism is at risk and American society must act to preserve it, according to a report co-authored by The Washington Post's former executive editor. In a paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and Michael Schudson, a Columbia professor, argue the government, universities and nonprofit foundations should step in as newspapers suffer financially. The authors recommend that the Internal Revenue Service or Congress ensure the tax code allows local news outlets to operate as nonprofits. Downie and Schudson also urge philanthropic organizations to support local reporting. They suggest the Federal Communications Commission estab...

David Patten over at Newsmax.com has broken down what the president's proposals are going to cost and how he's planning to pay for them. See his article here .