PAT BOONE // 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Letters From Pats Fans At World Net Daily

Posted by MS on 01.20.08

Well, in answer to the question whether or not anyone has been paying attention to Pat Boone's articles on World Net Daily, here's what a few of his fans had to say:

Dear Pat Boone,

Don't give up; as you point out, actions often have very long term consequences. Who knows what the seeds you are planting will produce!
E. D.

Dear Pat Boone,

Wow... I'm actually writing you a second time, and I say sending columnists responses isn't my style! I just can't take you seriously about doubting whether anyone pays any attention. You're as definite a read for me as Charles Krauthamner or Cal Thomas. A HABIT, in other words. Don't cease your "whistling," Mr. Boone. We would miss your tunefulness a lot!

Dear Pat Boone,

Pat, I could not have agreed with you more. It's not a coincidence that the very name of my company is the exact cry of your message. It is time that we, as believers, aggressive push for our given rights and express our faith as we have been called to do. That's why we, at Express Your Faith, have created a shirt design that aggressively asks the question "Do You Know Jesus?". No, I am not attempting to solicit, but to be honest, I've been a little discouraged lately, and to see your column about expressing your faith helped insipire me to keep pursuing what's on my heart to do, and it couldn't have come at a more better time. Thank you.

Dear Pat Boone,

Well, Pat, I don't know what influence you have. I think I have even less -- just a citizen here. But I like reading your columns; I look forward to finding them on NewsMax; and I agree with what you are saying. I have faith that one citizen at a time, one vote at a time, I make a difference (and therefore YOU make a difference).

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Hallelujah, amen, Sister Hillary!

Posted by PB on 04.02.06

I couldn't believe my eyes and ears.

Here was the very liberal senator from New York, wife of the former president, part of the team that favored partial-birth abortion – in fact, abortion as a "woman's choice" under virtually any circumstance. Weren't she and Bill pretty consistent supporters of same-sex "marriage" and multiple homosexual "rights," and champions of the much perverted and misapplied "separation of church and state" slogan? Was this the same person now using the Bible and well known Bible parables and names in vigorous statements advocating governmental policy?

In remarks as the cameras rolled at a hastily arranged Manhattan press conference, wide-eyed and earnest as any preacher, Hillary Clinton said that the House-passed immigration legislation "would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus Himself"! It reminded me of Aimee Semple McPherson, the charismatic woman evangelist of the early 1900s, whose extravagant, flamboyant sermons galvanized much of Christian thought and even influenced political directions in her time.

Perhaps even more, I was astounded to hear her sounding like many of our Founding Fathers in their famous appeals to scriptural examples and principles, because I was under the impression that she and her husband had totally bought into the lame idea that people in government should leave their religion at home, and that any depiction of faith, especially Christian faith, should never even be mentioned in public. After all, this is a woman thought to have presidential aspirations herself, and as a prominent front-runner for the Democrat nomination, you'd think she would sound more like Ted Kennedy or Barney Frank than Jerry Falwell.

But no! Sister Hillary, deaconess of the New York Diocese of the Church of the Left Behind, was fearlessly opposing the current president and Congress, using the Bible as her authority! I nearly fell out of my pew! Surely, the only man in America more astounded than I was Pat Robertson – founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of his own 700 Club – who is pilloried in the media every time he expresses a personal opinion about politics or policy, and dares to quote a scripture in support of it. "Crazed religious fanatic!" "Right-wing whacko!" "Small-minded political hack, trying to force his ideology on American government." These and other less complimentary phrases are flung at him from every angle by media, talk-show hosts, comedians and, of course, various liberal politicians. He's practically seen as a political and social leper, primarily because he refers to scriptures and his understanding of them, on his own bought and paid for TV show. How dare he!

And suddenly, right out of nowhere, part of the team that pardoned convicted stock manipulator Marc Rich – as Bill Clinton's last act before leaving the White House – was staunchly advocating pardoning 14 million illegal aliens who have violated American law and are sapping taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars each year, year after year. And what was she using to drive her argument home? Scripture! Reference to Jesus of Nazareth! It was a scene worthy of the "Twilight Zone"!

Of course, "using" is the operative word here.

The references were totally inappropriate and non-related to her position. I'm afraid they betrayed a woeful lack of familiarity and understanding of the scripture she tried to apply. Jesus' parable about the Good Samaritan portrays a compassionate member of the lowest social class (roughly analogous to a Mexican alien) coming to the aid of a wounded Jewish businessman, while the religious leaders of that day ignored him.

Nowhere in scripture that I know of (and I read the Bible cover to cover every year) does Jesus authorize breaking civic law. In fact, He famously advised: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." And that pronouncement is especially significant when you realize the Roman government was harsh, dictatorial and completely unfeeling toward the people it oppressed. He made a clear distinction between secular and religious obligation, when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

Only Sister Hillary herself could explain what she meant when she said that Congress' desire to see our immigration laws strengthened would probably "criminalize even Jesus himself." Does she somehow think Jesus deliberately defied laws on the books and expected us to do the same? Or perhaps that His constant compassion for the afflicted, the hungry, the possessed, oppressed and sin-bound people all around Him made Him a first-century Che Guevara? That for our secular society to demand that our majority-mandated laws be obeyed by all who would live here is somehow inhumane, un-Christian and dishonoring of the One who voluntarily gave Himself to be crucified at the hands of the Roman government?

Evidently, the seminary she attended skipped over the book of Romans, particularly its 13th chapter, in which the Apostle Paul proclaims:

Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from god, and those that exist are instituted by god. So then – the one who resists the authority is opposing God's command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.

When she gets to that part of the New Testament, Sister Hillary will be discomfited to discover that enforcement legislation properly criminalizes the lawbreaker, not Jesus. And that Paul goes even further in Romans 13, saying by inspiration of God:

For government is God's servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. Therefore, you must submit, not only because of wrath, but also because of your conscience.

All of this demonstrates a deep and pervasive misunderstanding of Jesus, His purpose and pronouncements. As I said one night on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" show, when he questioned Christian support of the death penalty:

Bill, Jesus didn't speak to governments; He spoke totally to individuals. When He advised us to turn the other cheek, return good for evil, pray for our enemies, He was talking to us individually. You can't expect any government in the world to operate that way, or any society to protect itself without strict laws that are meant to be obeyed on penalty of serious punishment.

Jesus himself said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Don't assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Yes, I know he was referring to Mosaic Law, but law is law." .

Law is the structure of earthly society. Within the structure of law, we individuals are commanded to extend compassion and aid to our needy brothers, and Jesus set the supreme example. Americans are the most generous and caring people in all of history. We've extended an open invitation to any and all to come and share, but with the expectation that the immigrants will learn how our society works, and obey our laws.

Through corporate greed and governmental carelessness, we've allowed a situation to develop in our borders that threatens our very existence. And if America can't protect itself and enforce its own laws, what kind of society will we wind up with? Why do we think millions are fleeing Mexico and illegally crossing our borders into our country? It's surely to escape a society like the one we might become, if Sister Hillary and her parishioners have their way.

Please, Sister, turn the page: "If the foundations be destroyed, what will the righteous do?" – Psalms 11:3

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Under God..

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

On March 24, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Elk Grove Unified School District vs. Newdow, the case challenging the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. Atheist Michael Newdow sued the Elk Grove school district, saying that his daughter was harmed when forced to hear a teacher-led recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and that it was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Although the 9th Circuit Court originally agreed with Mr. Newdow's contention, the court stayed the ruling after a national uproar ensued.

The 9th Circuit Court based its decision on two court cases Wallace vs. Jaffree and Santa Fe School District vs. Doe. Both cases the court cited in its decision involved how prayer was handled in public school settings. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deliberately chose to ignore that the Supreme Court has a history of distinguishing between state-sponsored or -endorsed prayer, which it has repeatedly upheld does violate the Establishment Clause, and ceremonial or patriotic acknowledgements of God, which it has also repeatedly held does not. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to follow the dicta of these previous decisions because "the court has never been presented with the question directly."

Congress added the phrase "under God" to the pledge in 1954, meaning to distinguish clearly between the religious heritage of the United States and the atheistic principles of Communism. As one lawmaker stated in 1954: "Our American government is founded on ... the belief that every human being has been created by God and endowed by Him with certain inalienable rights which no civil authority may usurp. Thus, the inclusion of God in our Pledge of Allegiance ... sets at naught the communistic theory that the state takes precedence over the individual."

Our government acknowledges this nation's religious heritage in the Constitution, the National Motto and the National Anthem. The inclusion of the phrase is reflective of a political philosophy, not a theology, and as such it does not violate the Establishment Clause. Washington pundits remain fairly confident that the Supreme Court will overturn the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the Supreme Court can do so on the issue of standing, which constituted the brunt of the March 24 debate, or it can do so on the basis of the merits of the case. We urge the Supreme Court to uphold the inclusion of such references as testimony to this nation's religious and patriotic heritage, outside of the realm of dicta and into a precedent-setting ruling.

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Ryan's Reach

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

Hi friends, I'm Ryan Corbin's proud grandfather.

He and his sister Jessica were our very first grandkids, courtesy of our beautiful daughter Lindy and their dad Doug Corbin. As the years have flown by, we've seen these two develop into exemplary, admirable, responsible and beautiful human beings.

But on June 19, 2001, Ryan and a buddy from Pepperdine University went up on the roof of an apartment complex in West L.A. to get some sun, and Ryan inadvertently fell through the skylight in that flat roof, falling forty feet to a concrete floor, denting two railings on the way down. The paramedics rushed to the scene and thought twenty-four year old Ryan was dead or dying. They rushed him to UCLA emergency, where the doctors and nurses did everything humanly possible, but gave us little hope that Ryan would survive the next twenty-four hours.

Its almost two years later. Ryan was in a coma for six months, and through lots of prayer and loving attention, all kinds of therapy and support, and with his own indomitable 'can do' spirit, he's steadily recovering to what we believe will be complete normalcy. Of course, the 'experts' still won't confirm that, but we know Ryan and we know our God.

Because we're receiving Ryan back day by day, and because he and his extended family are grateful for the kinds of support and therapy he's received from many quarters, we all want to establish this foundation in his name, and to try to extend to others some of the types of help that have benefited Ryan. The Bible admonishes us, 'freely have you received, freely give'.

That's what we aim to do.

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Ryan's Reach

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

Hi friends, I'm Ryan Corbin's proud grandfather.

That's what we aim to do.

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American Glory

Posted by on 03.16.06

Pat Boone - American Legend By: Dominick A. Miserandino

When talking to Pat Boone, you might not think of politics, but with Pat’s release of American Glory, you need to wonder. Why release a CD of purely American and patriotic songs? In only a ten-minute snippet of this interview, you can see where his beliefs come from and why. Whether you agree or not, you have to respect somebody who loves his country this much.

DM) Your recent CD is very patriotic

PB) I tell people, it’s not just the best, it’s the only CD that anybody has done of all the patriotic songs and military anthems. It’s something that has just been out of fashion. I jokingly said it never occurred to P. Diddy or Eminem or Ja Rule to do this, so I had to. It’s not the kind of music that has been in fashion and it bothered me greatly. It seriously upset me, that America’s kids have never been exposed to America’s great patriotic songs. We used to sing them in school, but I don’t think we sing them much anymore.

I asked Ollie North when was the last time he heard somebody sing the Marine Corp, besides a colonel in the Marine Corp, and he scratched his head and said, “Grade School, or maybe some military television show.” I handed him a copy of the CD and said, “One grateful American is singing your songs.”

At night, at the shows, I do what I call a military medley. I do each of the four military branches in song and ask them to stand so we can applaud and thank them. It’s very moving because, in my audience at least, a third of the audience is standing. I make the point that they don’t usually brag or talk about it, but they put everything on the line for us, when the government asked them to. It gets a tremendous response and I’m just really shameless in urging people to get this album, not because it’s the best or the only one in half a century, but because we need to preserve these songs.

DM) What do you think has changed in our country that has made this out of fashion?

PB) There's been a real… lackadaisical, no, that’s not strong enough, I could say leftist, no that’s too strong… a disregard and disdain for the military. It’s not until 9-11 that you desperately wanted to know that somebody was out there defending you. There are a lot of people who don’t have any regard at all for the military. I think it’s been a gradual disdain for the military. It was like that in the 70s for the police. Police were breaking up anti-war demonstrations and drug busts and pot parties, so it became fashionable to a lot of young people to call the police pigs. I kept saying to everybody who would listen, “Wait until somebody breaks into your house and see if you want to call them pigs.” There are disappointments and bad eggs in almost any organization, but the police are selfless, brave people who are trained to defend us against the kinds of wars that are right here in our midst.

To me, there’s been a very weird lack of respect and appreciation for all establishments, all structure, and all authority. From the street level to the president, people and comedians, satirist people like Al Franken, even other political candidates say terrible things about our elected leaders. It’s one thing to disagree, but it’s another thing to have terrible disrespect. I must say, I admire Ted Kennedy for a lot of reasons, but for him to say the things he said about our President, who is our Commander in Chief and the head of our lives on the line against terrorists, who definitely want to kill us. Not just the soldiers, but us as well! And to undermine and discourage those in uniform by a prominent senator. To say such things, I was astonished that a man who is in office that long would say such things. Even to say, it was just at home, is outrageous as the news networks are carried internationally to Iraq and the caves of Osama Bin Laden. So the effect I think is to say, “look Osama, the folks back in America think that the president is wrong. Let's keep going. Even the senators who are supposed to support him are not.” You can disagree but to hurl slanderous charges isn’t in our best interest.

DM) How does one disagree and voice an opinion without being damaging?

PB) You can say you’re concerned, but the great majority of Americans and the polls say that the president is doing the right thing. It’s not enough because there’s an election coming up. They move beyond voicing their concerns, it’s how you do it. Now like so many of the harshly vocal criticism, mainly the candidates who want Bush’s job, they’re trying to discredit him…. to take away the public’s confidence in their leader. What that does, it has some effect here, but if you’re a terrorist organization and you’re doing your best to destroy a country and society like ours, if you hear enough blatant and irreverent comments, you’re thinking, “Keep doing what you’re doing, we’re making gains here.” And they are!

People in some quarters are so upset about civil liberators. They say, “You can’t keep looking for terrorists at the loss of our privacy” (laughs), Well to me, if you’ve flown anywhere lately you realize that you’ve lost a lot of your privacy. You don’t’ like it but you know why you’re doing it. Buy you know there might be somebody with a shoe bomb. Would you like to take your shoes off or let that guy get on with his? And if people need to monitor phone lines or whatever they have to do, to trip up the terrorists, it’s for our good. It’s always been necessary in time of war to suspend certain liberties, because there’s a higher priority, and that’s life itself! And I get so upset when people think life should go on as normal, and think that somehow magically we’re going to find a formula to stop these people who are willing to blow themselves up to stop us. You’ve got to take strong measures.

I remember as a kid in Nashville Tennessee, we had to shut our lights off at night in case you were bombed- inland, in the states! You do things that are not permanent; you temporarily suspend some of your privileges until you’re safe.

DM) Your beliefs and your Christian beliefs have been there throughout your career. Has your voicing of your views ever been damaging to you?

PB) It’s been limiting, sure, because there’s a lot of people who don’t agree with me. I have a visceral, negative response to people like Jane Fonda, Ed Asner, and others far on the left. Jane with Hanoi and others on that side. I didn’t want to be in their company and if I was a guy hiring in the movies I would do my best to find somebody other than them to fill a role. And I knew that was happening to me. Of course, I was greatly outnumbered in Hollywood, and there were parts and roles I could have been considered for, which I was turned down for. I knew what it was, it was a visceral disagreement with my lifestyle and my philosophies. Then I got to meet Jane Fonda, Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, and others, and I know that they’re motivated by their own consciences. And to some extent, I know that they’ve put their own careers on the line, like I always have, and I respect them. I may view myself on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but I know that they’re motivated by their beliefs. Of course their beliefs are much more popular then mine but I still respect them.

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Why Hollywood Is Leftie

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

It was just around the end of 2004 that I decided the following theory was ready to go public. Some people around me have puzzled over Hollywood's leftward political character for years. The theory--the epiphany--below has been put forth nowhere else that I'm aware of. I look forward to your responses.

The oft-puzzled-over mystery of why Hollywood is so left-liberal does have a solution.

We have but to ponder the obvious: Hollywood is a place where people come from near and far to devote themselves to the pursuit of conspicuous public career accomplishment. These individuals, perhaps even to their credit, do believe in themselves as exceptional, or at least believe in the exceptional worthiness of their aspirations. Yes, there’s narcissism here, but each of these would-be big time players also reflects the remarkable choice or ability to give higher priority to making it-- even if later on -- than to providing financial stability here and now.br>

Unless you’re a lucky heir or beneficiary of someone else’s money, to live your young adult life willing to wait tables and perform unpaid in showcases or work on music or film productions “on spec,” you must put aside the focus on financial stability that more traditional young adults practice in their family-formative years. If you live this “on spec” life style for many years, the value you place on making it big in the future must compete with any idea of family stability in the present. Duty to things like children or in-laws will distract from your needed obsessiveness with showbiz “prospecting.” So Hollywood ends up being home to disproportional numbers of the more self-absorbed who lack a bit in the way of family bonds and who often “have a problem with commitment” in their personal lives.

Being more narcissistic and less family-integrated than most citizens is a disconcerting (if not much pondered) fact of life for folks in this community. As long as it remains un-cool to be a narcissist, and as long as homo sapiens remain a family-organized species, they have a problem. – Ah, but Hollywood has its remedy. Cultivating a standardized “I love you” posture toward any audiences, fans, and peers you may have, while substituting a high-minded community consciousness for the missing family component in your personal life, you provide yourself cover from seeming narcissistic or unrelated. Inherent in this remedy is (Mystery solved) a political left turn.

The collective “we” so reflexively embraced in Hollywood naturally welcomes something of a nanny state. If lacking the means, the time, or the inclination to explore ways to provide the best for your children is a problem – why not let the government do it? Family values are more negotiable if you don’t value family a heck of a lot more than you value conspicuous public career accomplishment. So merging the duties of individuals and families into those of politicians and governments makes easy sense. And favoring such collective caring lets you avoid seeming not to be a fully functional community member; you can feel like an altruist, not a narcissist.

Of course, this description of Hollywood doesn’t precisely fit wherever you look. I speak of things generally true here. Generally, Hollywood has long been accurately identified as left-liberal. And it's long been the sad truth that only a few who “hit it big” manage to keep their families and marriages together. Jimmy Stewart, Chuck Heston, and yes, Pat Boone, come to mind. (Shirley and I just celebrated our 50th Anniversary.) Difficulty with family life doesn’t necessarily evaporate when stardom brings financial security, because ego insecurity still drives many in this town, and not in a family-friendly way. Family values competing with those of personal fame and fortune make Hollywood marriages – even those of big stars, even those staffed with full time assistants – too often sadly unsuccessful and brief.

A Hollywood so full of citizens more devoted to personal biographical accomplishment than to family turns out to be a Hollywood known for its leftish politics. This should mystify us only if we ignore the universal human need to be sure of membership in community, perhaps tribe, and above everything else, family. The human animal, as they say, is social. When its need for family is compromised or repressed, as routinely it is in Hollywood, it comforts the human animal to get socialistic.

-- Pat Boone, November 2004

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WHAT THE HECK IS “MORAL VALUES” ANYWAY?

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

According to Ben and Tom

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Our founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote those words in 1787, the same year he rose in a hopelessly stalled constitutional convention to propose that each day’s deliberations begin with prayer, and even that a local minister be brought in to deliver a sermon, while they labored on. To advocate preaching and praying, in almost any circumstance public or private, is a moral values choice. Amazingly, moral values underlay every other consideration when our founding fathers were creating this republic.

Not sure? Mr. Separation Of Church And State himself, Thomas Jefferson, signed the act for Ohio to become a state, providing that its government “not be repugnant to the Northwest Ordinance” of 1787, which provided that “religion, morality, and knowledge” were “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”

Jefferson wrote in 1798, “No power over the freedom of religion is delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” That, and that only, is what he was referring to when he coined the famous “church and state” phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. He wanted to assure them that no church would have official standing, as the Church of England had, when he wrote “I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” [emphasis added]

“Well, he was talking to a church,” ACLU folks would respond. “Let them worship in their own building however they want, but keep religion out of public life and off government property!” Jefferson would have treated such arguments dismissively. While he was president he also chaired the school board for the District of Columbia, authoring its first plan of education. It used the Bible and Isaac Watts’ Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, as the “principle books for teaching reading to students.” Assigned Bible reading in public schools!

There’s even more. President Jefferson attended Christian services on Sundays in the large Hall of Congress. And he signed the appropriation when that body used taxpayer funds to pay missionaries to bring the gospel to frontier Indians. He not only signed bills appropriating financial support for chaplains, but in the Articles of War of 1806 he urged “all officers and soldiers diligently to attend divine services.”

Today’s ACLU has sued the Army to remove any Boy Scout troops from military bases because the Scout Oath explicitly references duty to God and country. Lawyers who might have tried that would have been in fear for their very careers under President Thomas “Separation Of Church And State” Jefferson. He defended the liberties and rights of expression of all, even Christians.

Lately we’ve been hearing from some blue state folks, “Hey, we’re all about moral values; what about values like a decent wage, medical care, Social Security, quality education?” Those are all important issues, but they are material values. Let’s be very clear: Material is what you spend resources on; moral is what you believe in. Exit polling in this last election evidenced that many Americans see “moral values” as their most important electoral issue. Because, they feel viscerally, if we don’t preserve our moral identity, what will the rest really matter?

Most Americans are repulsed by the deaths of millions of young Americans in the womb since Roe v. Wade, most define marriage as a union of man and woman, and most want “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Every mention of God or scripture removed from public property is an affront to them. They fear a militant agnostic minority is robbing freedoms from the majority.

On moral values millions of us still agree with old Tom Jefferson, who held the teaching of Jesus “to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which has ever been preached to man.” We take guidance from his marble-inscribed words in the Jefferson Memorial, “Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.”

Millions of us further agree with old Ben Franklin, who during the Revolutionary War wrote “Whoever shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.” He summed up then as he might now, “A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district – all studied and appreciated as they merit – are the principle support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty.”

Thank you, Professors Jefferson and Franklin. Class closed.

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Michael and Osama Attack American Symbols

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

Pat Boone Friday, Jan. 28, 2005

What was it about the World Trade Center that attracted Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida killers – not once but twice? And why attack the Pentagon? And why was one of the skyjacked planes headed toward another Washington target, possibly the White House or the Capitol Building?

Why? Because they're more than inviting targets; they're highly visible symbols of American life. They represent free enterprise and our successful commerce throughout the world; they represent our supreme military might; and they represent our free democratic government, the envy – and fear – of the rest of the world.

Some of our own top leaders have referred to Osama bin Laden as a "worthy adversary," a "brilliant strategist" and "the most dangerous enemy in the world." From his dank cave in Northern Afghanistan (or more likely a sumptuous air-conditioned apartment in Pakistan, provided by Saudi Arabian friends) he orchestrated a fiendishly effective campaign to hit America where we live – not just to attack our people, but our precious symbols.

Enter his twin in attacking America's symbols, one Michael Newdow, the atheist lawyer from San Francisco. While Osama and al-Qaida attack our physical symbols, Michael Newdow is busy attacking with all his ferocious bile the precious symbols of our religious freedoms and our freedom of expression.

Although these freedoms are guaranteed in the First Amendment, Newdow cleverly quotes only the first part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," and attacks the two words "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance, our national motto "in God we trust" on our currency -– and most recently walked the streets of Washington, importuning at least two Supreme Court justices, trying to suborn them into preventing the prayer of a minister in the inauguration or any mention by the President of God in the inaugural proceedings!

And of course he never mentions the next phrase in the First Amendment: "nor restricting the free exercise thereof." As a trained lawyer, he selects only passages that he feels support his assault, and conveniently leaves out those that refute him.

And what Osama is still conniving to do from without, Newdow is energetically campaigning to do from within. It's not enough for him that neither he nor any other nonbeliever is constrained to say the Pledge as we have been saying it since 1954, and which President Eisenhower and both houses of Congress approved at the will of the American people in 1954.

That's not enough for him. He is so blinded by his evil rage that he says, in effect, that he is offended by any mention of God in public life, so you 260 million Americans shut up!

I so wish I could obtain H. G. Wells' time machine and transport Newdow back to Thomas Jefferson's second inauguration, and let him hear the man who coined the phrase "separation of church and state" not just refer to God in his acceptance speech, but actually write and publish a national prayer in 1804, as president, imploring the blessings of God and expressing his dependence on the Son of God, Jesus.

And let him also be reminded that, for years after the ink was dry on the Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself, the oath of office in a number of our states still required newly elected officials to express their belief and dependence on "God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And while that was eventually declared unconstitutional, and rightly so, it was only because some new office holders didn't believe those things, and objected to having to profess them.

Nobody is requiring Newdow or anyone else to say things they don't believe. So his vicious and unrelenting attacks have another motive. And it's the same as Osama bin Laden's. It is the tearing down and destruction of the very symbols of America's greatness, her DNA, those distinctive traits and practices that have lent us our strength and national identity.

He keeps claiming that he "loves this country" and the Constitution and only wants to defend "equality." What's equal about silencing 260 million Americans who want to retain these symbols because he and a pitiful few others don't like them?

He has been spouting his atheistic beliefs (and I confronted him with the fact that his atheism is a faith system, built on the premise that there is no God, which can't be proved, versus faith in God, for which evidence exists everywhere) on all the cable and news programs, but doesn't want the rest of us to express our faith even in hallowed institutions like the inauguration!

Newdow doesn't like what America has been for over 200 years and wants to deface and erase all open expressions of faith in God. Osama hates us and calls us "infidels" and worse because we acknowledge a different God than he does.

I try to read Edward Everett Hale's classic, "A Man Without a Country," every year. I wish every American would do the same. In this wonderful short novella, a young lieutenant has been convicted of treason against his country and when asked to make his final statement, he exclaims loudly in the court: "Damn the United States! I wish I might never hear of her again!"

In the stunned silence that follows his outburst, the judge quietly sentences him to that very thing. He is remanded to a ship at sea, and strict orders are given that he never be able to hear the name America or discuss with anyone the United States for the rest of his life. And that sentence is carried out.

I and most Americans would urge Michael Newdow to join his brother Osama, wherever he is, and we will happily buy his first-class ticket. He needs to be with others who think like he does. I think we would far rather contend with people like these two and their vicious attacks on America and her symbols and not have them coming at us from our more vulnerable underside, from within.

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Dear Paul, Talkin’ Bout Freedom

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

by Pat Boone, February 2005

Americans feel approximately the general love for Europe that I feel for Paul McCartney in particular. As a proxy for Europeans’ and Americans’ disappointment with each other, Paul turns out to exemplify and (who better?) to communicate pretty much the heart of the matter. Think Freedom, his post-9-11 anthem.

For some reason, many consequential artists are rascals at times, and I could cite things Paul once said or did that incensed me, but any forgiveness he needs he doesn’t need from me. I give him his due; on balance I just love knowing he’s here. (And you know what? I have the same feeling about Europe!)

Years ago McCartney said some things about drugs or sex or religion that were just stupid. But years ago he rendered some songs that were just splendid. The latter have mattered more than the former. Even today, we’re not surprised if Paul releases a new song that has breathtaking beauty or impact. On top of all that, he has always seemed to exhibit gentlemanly instincts. Unlike his near-equal song genius partner John Lennon, Paul has always restrained himself from righteous or narcissistic exhibitionism over social causes, even ones he has championed with his time and money. An older and wiser man nowadays, when McCartney speaks there’s hardly a fear that he’ll say anything really stupid.

Okay then, so what’s this I read? Los Angeles television anchor Sam Rubin interviewed McCartney, the subject of our presidential election came up, and Paul said “I personally wasn't too keen on it. I was supporting the other guy.” Oops. Sorry. To me that was something stupid.

But at least he said it in gentlemanly fashion: “I think it's sad, really, because after 9/11, the perception and the feeling of support for the American people was tremendous… I think that's been eroded… I think a lot of people over in Europe are a bit saddened that this has happened.”

Dear Paul, my persuasive powers may not be sufficient to change your mind or theirs, but let me point out the deep agreement you have with the position taken not by “the other guy” you supported but by our re-elected President Bush. The latter doesn’t flinch from a little preaching: “The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom,” he said in this year’s State Of The Union address. That address in 2003--before our incursion to remove Saddam--brought his very public profession that freedom “is not America's gift to the world, it's God's gift to humanity.”

Your lyrics go “This is my right, a right given by God-- To live a free life, to live in freedom.” Can we say that you and Bush both steal from Thomas Jefferson, Paul? No, to be fair, our guy Jefferson got it from your chap Locke, we could say, and your Hume, and your Blackstone, who all got the whole “laws of nature and nature’s God” thing going a long time before it became part of our Declaration of Independence. Right after that phrase in the Declaration comes the one stating that everyone is “endowed by their creator” with unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Talkin’ bout freedom!

“The other guy” you supported offered us Americans the flimsy view that Iraq was “the wrong war, at the wrong time,” a place where the goal of democracy might have to bow to the more attainable goal of stability. A majority of us rejected his apparent view that our response to the worldwide threat of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction should resemble little more than a manhunt for Osama bin Laden, and we re-elected the president your sophisticated European brethren call a “cowboy.”

You’re right, Paul, the erosion of our European support is “sad, really,” because what’s been eroded is the legitimate stuff of your post-9/11 anthem Freedom. It seems destined to be one of those songs of yours that gets put aside and then rediscovered from time to time. And, well, at the time of your interview, you yourself don’t sound so willing to deal with its legitimate message. Throughout military history, it’s been not the strategy of fortification but that of leaving the fort and attacking the aggressor that’s had the winning track record. And Paul, this is about safety, if anybody needs a stronger motivating word than your “freedom.” In that context, erosion of European support for the American people is, as you say, “sad, really.” But it’s sad merely.

If “context is everything,” let me point out that Europe’s eroding support for the American people has occurred within the context of our effort to preserve, protect, and defend freedom. Our taking it all so seriously has some British roots, Sir Paul, so I appeal for your pardon! No, in my cockeyed American optimism, I actually appeal for your agreement. Your Freedom lyrics aren’t wrong; your fellow European who parts company with their point of view is.

I suppose Americans can’t expect European support not to erode if we’re marching upright instead of down and bleeding as we were on a certain September 12th. However we do hope for a solid share of Europe’s intelligent support for core beliefs that give both freedom and peace a chance and that originated over there.

Paul, can they still join in on your chorus? “I will fight for the right to live in freedom!”

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Is It Government's Role to Define Marriage?

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

In matters of government, the rights of the individual compete with those of the state, no matter what philosophy or social contract is said to be in practice. We conservatives are understood to prefer smaller government and more individual liberty, so we're scorned as hypocrites if we oppose "gay marriage." I answer as a small government conservative, feeling not at all hypocritical:

Gays have the right, no less than "straights" have, to get married. For legal purposes, marriage is a contract between two opposite sexed individuals. Consistent with equal protection under the law, neither gays nor straights can get married to individuals of their own sex. The argument isn't about the individual's right to choose monogamous cohabitation; it's about the state's right to establish legal definitions.

To illustrate, you can call your weekend-training band of gun nuts a "militia" if you want, but don't say the government is denying your rights if it doesn't expand its definition of the militia and give you the corresponding benefits of funding or support like restricted highway lanes for your pickup truck convoys! Likewise, call your same-gender mate your "spouse" if you wish, even have a "wedding" in an agreeable church under your First Amendment rights, but don't say the government is denying your rights if it doesn't expand its definition of marriage and so give you the corresponding rights and standing of the legally married.

The government obviously can define what the military is or is not, and it had better, because the military is a fundamental structure providing for civilization to carry on. So is marriage. And since government is in the high stakes business of protecting and providing and taxing and all the rest, government has an obvious requirement to define what marriage is and is not.

Operating under statutory definitions is what government does. It routinely defines individuals according to both accidents of birth and choices of behavior. Things like citizenship, age, tribal membership, gender, military veteran status, and tax brackets are examples of how the government's definition will result in different individuals being treated unequally in all sorts of ways.

So where does this leave individuals who are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights? As always, they compete with rights that governments claim and enforce. The perceived needs of the whole body politic have almost always trumped individual rights wherever there has been government. If I act on my inborn claustrophobia and cruise in the breakdown lane at rush hour, the state will deny my individual right to do so. If my inborn nature is to love and cohabit monogamously with someone of my own gender, the state will deny my claim on the benefits it provides married people, and the terminologies and ceremonies my partner and I may have adapted for our situation won't matter. In these cases, the state perceives my individual freedom as costing the whole body politic too much, and I am denied an individual right.

The flippant question "How does their gay marriage threaten your straight marriage?" isn't as important as the question how redefining marriage to include same-sexed partners may threaten society. And the answer is that we don't know, because we haven't seen it anywhere before in history! We know at least that the benefits and standing that government gives married people do cost some money and do affect some choices.

Redefining marriage--an institution older than church or state--is not an incremental step but a radical one. Its foundational importance makes marriage at least as unwise an institution as the military for social experimentation. The issues go beyond the particular individuals in the marriage contract. Marriage produces families and children and expectations on which the fate of the whole society depends, and thus the whole society has something to say about it.

Here in the Golden State where legislation passed prohibiting employers from firing male employees for wearing women's clothing to work, gay marriage supporters do have a fighting chance to get marriage redefined the old fashioned way--by winning a sufficient number of votes in the legislature. Sitting judges in just a few courts (Judge Richard Cramer here in California most lately) have now exhibited an embarrassing professional failure to exercise the time-honored principle of judicial restraint. Redefining marriage is law-giving of the first order, and our constitutional system entrusts such power only to the legislative branch.

A few ham-handed judges are standing that on its head, bringing us what seems likely to become operationally a constitutional crisis. In this context the constitutional amendment remedy will not be an extreme one; it will be necessary and appropriate. It will moor us to the Preamble to our Constitution and to Roman numeral one in our social contract. We the People are sovereign here.

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A Government of Laws, Not of Men

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

With all its personal feelings of sorrow and rage multiplied by all the hearts and minds it has occupied, the matter of Terri Schiavo has touched off an explosion of serious thinking and debating about the power to govern from the courtroom bench. Its aftermath will not pass predictably but will stretch ahead for a long time, and we may be noticing the heat as much as the light on the subject.

A shared national deathwatch is a rare and extraordinary thing, and the heated ordeal shared by a citizenry unable to avert its eyes from Terri Schiavo and her family will fuel the second-guessing and remedy-seeking for years to come.

Momentous questions have kept mounting. Should her by-now-bigamous husband have had legal “standing” in this case? Did Congress act in an extra-constitutional way? Did the Florida courts fumble her right to due process? Did they illegally ignore mandates from Congress? Could we be truthfully confident she was feeling no pain?

Serious people are saying the answers are clear. And no sooner are they saying so than they are hearing other serious people say they are clearly wrong.

Presented as certifiable fact, pronouncements about Terri Schiavo’s precise medical and conscious state were made available, and we could believe them if we could ignore pronouncements of certifiable fact that were 180 degrees opposite. In Terri Schiavo’s case, the “facts” a particular judge chose were all that counted anyway.

In a case like this, a judge whose normal duty is to apply the law uniformly to individual cases has to take the extra step of choosing which facts--which experts, which witnesses--to believe and render true. His judgment becomes the truth for all practical purposes.

Not one of the oft-ballyhooed multiple appeals took a new look at the original findings of fact. Quite possibly the original judge wished the responsibility belonged to a jury, as it would in a criminal case, but in Terri Schiavo’s case he dutifully chose the “fact” that her husband, who recalled it from fifteen years ago, had heard her declare that she wouldn’t want him to keep her alive this way. (A borderline example of hear-say evidence, it’s being said.) Despite her never getting an MRI or a PET scan, Terri Schiavo is deemed, as Congressman Barney Frank put it, “not capable, according to what the courts have found, of feeling pain.”

But, in the real world apart from what courts find, people can still ask: Would you rather be burned at the stake or starved to death? I complained to Congressman Frank that Terri Schiavo is getting terminated because of hear-say… as unjustly as Joan of Arc got terminated because of heresy! He disagreed with me (per his habit) on a Larry King Show roundtable, but he was again on TV after just a few days reflection, entertaining the possibility with others like Congressman Dave Weldon of Florida that new legislation will aim to prevent the withdrawal of nutrition from patients like Schiavo.

Even Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader now openly seek to thwart Terri Schiavo’s termination. Is her case making political allies of Barney, Jesse, Ralph, and me? The power of this moment in history should not be underestimated. Nor should it be squandered.

Two great horrors have arisen to scare us, and they correspond to two great questions that will be overarching America’s domestic agenda: The two great horrors are (1)the prospect of grossly inhumane treatment of a citizen at the hands of the state and (2)the prospect of court judges having sweeping dictatorial powers over us and the rest of our elected officeholders. The two great questions are: (1)What and whose individual rights will the state enforce? And (2)What powers do and don’t the courts have?

Contrary to what’s generally believed, there’s nothing in the U.S. Constitution that gives the courts the last word in upholding the law. Governors and presidents are also sworn to that primary duty. The historical happenstance of the Marbury versus Madison Case in 1803 did more to establish the courts’ role as the arbiter of a statute’s legitimacy than did anything written in the Constitution. So seeking to change the role of courts in our political system may be immoderate, but it still isn’t illegitimate as some law school types now hold.

"We must have a government of laws, not of men," we keep hearing.

Well… What the United States Congress enacted last Palm Sunday, mandating a de novo court review that would necessitate at least an interim reconnection of Terri Shiavo’s feeding tube--that was a law. What kept Terri Shiavo's feeding tube disconnected--that was a man. That irreducible contradiction is at the center of the storm we now sail into.

-- Pat Boone, April 2005

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AMERICA’S JOAN OF ARC

Posted by PB on 03.16.06

I've felt a need to be definite in pointing out the broad political urgencies in the matter of Terri Schiavo. "A government of laws, not of men" is a robust description of the system most folks would prefer to live in. I suppose when our system isn't measuring up, that's when we're each allowed to feel things more personally too. So, leave the precise political ponderings for another day. Right here, right now, it's the grandfather of Ryan in me, and the child of America in me, speaking from the dismay in his heart:

AMERICA'S JOAN OF ARC

Well, America now has its own Joan of Arc.

In the mid-1400s, the Maid of Orleans, a young French girl who felt she had heard from God, was publicly burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy. And now a beautiful young woman named Terri Schiavo has been publicly and slowly executed in America on charges that amount to hearsay.

I suspect that in years to come, people looking back will feel the same sorrow and disbelief at Terri’s death as they have for young Joan of Arc, centuries ago. They are both incomprehensible and unforgivable.

Yes, I know there are plenty of arguments supporting the actions that have been taken by judges and courts and her husband Michael. And according to polls, the general public bought into the arguments that the judges and Michael put forth. They believed that (a) Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state for almost 15 years and (b) that as a young woman she professed she would not want to be kept alive artificially if she ever found herself in such a state. Based on those two assumptions, all the courts and judges that have heard her case have ruled that “her wishes” should be honored and all life support removed.

But there are serious questions that have never really been answered.

First, did Terri ever actually express such a firm desire, and would she have changed her mind sometime in the last 15 years? Sadly and most tellingly, there is no solid evidence to support either proposition. Would a death penalty (which is what this was) be assessed against anyone on just hearsay, 15-year-old statements? And has no judge taken into account the fact that even Terri’s husband Michael neglected to mention this “wish” until eight years had passed after her hospitalization? If he was so certain that his wife wouldn’t have wanted to exist in such a limited condition, why did he never bring it up until after he had had two children with another woman? Did it slip his mind until then?

And even if she made a statement like that at the age of 22 or so, do we not all make statements when we’re young that we rethink as we get older? Shouldn’t Terri Schiavo have been given some benefit of that doubt? And finally on that point, even if she devoutly wished not to be kept alive by “artificial means,” do food and water qualify as “artificial?” If so, each of us is on artificial life support already. Remove that, and any of us will die a long death of starvation and dehydration just like Terri Schiavo.

Could she really have intended or decreed “If I ever get to where I can’t feed myself or speak or do anything apparently worthwhile, please starve me to death and give me no water so that I can die slowly over a two week period, okay? And by the way, please do it on television so the world can watch, and make it as painful and agonizing for my parents as possible.” Does anybody really believe Terri Schiavo could have wished this?

Secondly, there has been wide spread dispute about whether she really is in a persistent vegetative state. None of us who has seen, countless times, her face light up with an apparent smile as her mother or dad spoke to her can truly believe that this is just a “reflex.” Reflexes don’t convey emotions. And over thirty trained physicians, including a Nobel Prize nominee who visited and spent ten hours with her, have testified they believe she does have a measure of intelligence and awareness of her surroundings and her loved ones who speak to her and try to care for her.

And finally, why did the courts disregard and disobey the order from the President and both houses of Congress to do a de novo review of the case – which means going back to the beginning, and reviewing all the facts, many of which these judges did not allow to be brought into evidence? There were things worth serious review, like the report that, when paramedics were summoned, they didn’t like what they saw and called the police, and that when the police came, they first thought they were looking at an attempted homicide. Only after they were told that young Terri had been starving herself and was bulimic did a doctor do a blood test and declare that a potassium imbalance might have brought on her heart attack. But where did the back and leg fractures come from that x-rays discovered some two years later? And if Michael and his right-to-die lawyer believe that Terri is absolutely brain dead, with only spinal fluid where a cortex used to be, why not release her to the loving care of her parents, who just want to cherish and support their daughter and whatever life she’s living? He evidently believes she’s been “dead” for years, so why not end the agony for her parents?

Well, it’s all been decided and done. Joan of Arc’s ashes were scattered over 500 years ago – and now Terri Schiavo will enter the pages of history with her sister in suffering. What is it the Bible said long ago? “The letter [of the law] killeth, but the spirit gives life.”

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