American Policy Center » 2005 » January
- Measure 37 To The Rescue
- Is Your Church Teaching Pagan Earth Worship In Sunday School?
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- PROBLEM CARD: “It seems like my parents fight all the time. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m afraid they’re going to split up.”
- Liberty’s Spirit Awakens, But Big Brother Never Sleeps
By Peyton Knight (January 2005)
Victims of Oregon’s tyrannical web of land use restrictions, ordinances, and regulatory takings can finally seek justice.
Measure 37 passed on November 2 and it allows Oregon property owners who have been wronged by any myriad of radical land use restrictions imposed by the state and local governments to seek just compensation for their monetary losses.
And if the governmental body responsible for the offending regulation can’t pony up the dough, the Measure calls for the property owner to be immune from the regulation. Measure 37 is right. It is fair. It is brilliant in its simplicity.
Measure 37 is the brainchild of Oregonians in Action, which describes itself as a “non-profit organization devoted solely to fighting for property rights and against excessive land use regulations.” The radicals at the Sierra Club have gleefully counted Oregon as second only to California in terms of suffocating land use restrictions. They, along with many other environmental extremists including Defenders of Wildlife, the League of Conservation Voters, The Nature Conservancy, and the Audubon Society, vehemently opposed Measure 37.
According to Oregonians in Action Vice President for Government Affairs Bill Moshofsky, his group was outspent 3-1 by its green adversaries and nearly every newspaper editorialized against them. Mr. Moshofsky has worked as a full-time volunteer at the organization since 1989. Yet despite seemingly overwhelming odds, David beat Goliath. Measure 37 passed 61% to 39%. It received more “yes” votes than any initiative in Oregon’s history.
Make no mistake. This is a monumental victory not only for victims of property rights abuses in Oregon, but around the country. Measure 37 is a model for every state. It is a long overdue justice whose time has come.
If the city-dwelling, environmental elitists weren’t so stunned, they’d be furious right now. But their fury will come later. Right now, they’re just trying to fathom 37’s overwhelming popularity—especially in light of the massive scare campaign they waged against it. Their death-grip on other people’s property is about to be loosened.
According to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, 57% of land in Oregon is federally owned. Three percent is owned by state or local governments and 38% is locked up as “protected” farm and forest land. The remaining 2% is city land. And you can bet that it’s the people occupying that paltry 2% of Oregon’s landmass that make life miserable for folks dwelling in the other 98%.
“What’s going on across the nation is that representatives of urban citizens are telling ranchers and farmers that they can never build anything on their land because people living in the city want to drive out to the country in their SUVs and see open space and feel warm and fuzzy about it,” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney David Breemer told the Los Angeles Times. Urbanites pay little mind to how socialist planning schemes destroy the lives of others.
Dorothy English is a widow who has fought for decades to make productive use of her 40 hill-top acres just outside Portland. “I’m 91 years old, my husband is dead, and I don’t know how much longer I can fight,” says English. She and her husband purchased the land back in 1953, intending to divide a portion of the parcel for retirement income, and also to give some land to her children. But in 1973, Oregon instituted a statewide planning law that put an abrupt end to Dorothy’s dreams. “It ruined our lives,” English told the Times, “I worked until I was 80.”
Gene Prete and his wife live in Bend. The Prete’s have wanted to build a retirement home on their 20 acres of land—a plot where they farm hay and own horses. Yet Oregon’s statewide planning law quashed their dream as well. Now they and Mrs. English may finally have their rights restored.
Of course, local authorities have already begun conspiring to crush the will of the Oregon people and the spirit of Measure 37. Some counties are charging exorbitant “filing fees” that exceed thousands of dollars, all in an effort to dissuade regulatory victims from coming forward. As a result, lawsuits and court battles are sure to follow.
Eco-extremists such as 1,000 Friends of Oregon, a group whose sole mission is to convince government to steal the rights of others, are shaking in their Birkenstocks. According to the Associated Press, they’re concerned that “Measure 37 could wreck the policies that have succeeded in preserving Oregon’s rural charms.” Only a Green would consider stealing someone else’s property “charming.”
With the passage of Measure 37, Oregonians in Action have shown Oregon and the nation that no odds are insurmountable when you have common sense and morality on your side.
Peyton Knight is executive director of the American Policy Center. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org.
January 17, 2005
By Tom DeWeese
Many parents have sought to protect their children from the behavior-modification programs that have taken the place of academic education in public schools. To escape the assault of Outcome-Based Education (OBE), multi-culturalism, and workforce training programs, parents in ever-increasing numbers are placing their children in private schools or are home-schooling.
Public schools, and even some private schools, spend valuable classroom time engaged in “cooperative” learning (group learning) encounter sessions and discussion groups that employ pop psychology that teachers are simply not qualified to apply. These programs are designed for a very specific purpose—to change the attitudes, values and beliefs of your children in order to prepare them to be proper environmental citizens in the “sustainable” global village. Such behavior-modification programs are the very root of the destruction of America’s public education system.
In spite of the “school wars,” parents have felt safe taking their children to Sunday School to help build a solid moral foundation. But, have you looked at your church’s Sunday School curriculum lately? You may be shocked to find tree-hugging, earth-worshipping paganism intermixed in the Christian lessons.
Many churches are now using a Sunday School curriculum created by an organization in Colorado called “Group.” There is nothing in Group’s publications that tells who they are, what they believe in, or anything about the backgrounds of the creators of the materials. But Group curriculum is now sold in most Christian bookstores. The Group material offers “Hands-on Bible curriculum” and advocates a “new approach to learning.”
However a close inspection of Group’s materials and teaching methods shows it bears a close resemblance to the behavior-modification techniques of OBE. For example, under the sub-head “Successful Teaching: You can do it!” the teacher’s manual asks the question – “What does active learning mean to you as a teacher? It takes a lot of pressure off because the spotlight shifts from you to the students. Instead of being the principle player, you become a guide and FACILITATOR.” This is basic OBE classroom organization where students are not taught by a teacher, but are guided to learn on their own, as the class FACILITATOR simply suggests and gently directs toward a pre-programmed, psychology-driven lesson plan.
Just as in OBE behavior-modification exercises, the Group curriculum provides “Problem Cards” for student discussion of personal and family issues. Some examples from the workbook for fifth and sixth grade Sunday School classes:
2. PROBLEM CARD: “The cool kids at school treat me like a total nothing. It’s like I don’t even exist.”
3. PROBLEM CARD: “My dad is afraid he’s going to lose his job, so we don’t get to go anywhere on vacation this summer.”
4. PROBLEM CARD: “I got in trouble for not cleaning up my room. Now I’m grounded for the weekend and can’t go to my friend’s birthday party. Doesn’t that stink?”
Each of these examples are designed for group discussions in which the entire class takes on one child’s personal problem. Personal family business is disclosed, parental authority is questioned and student “self-esteem” becomes the central concern. This is Outcome-Based Education at work in the Sunday School class—led by a volunteer teacher (facilitator) with no qualifications to do so. Worse, all of it is done under the authority of the church.
And how about that pagan earth-worshipping? In a Group lesson entitled “hug a tree” students are led outside to an area with trees. A child is blindfolded and led to a tree where he/she is to hug it, and then feel the tree very carefully. “Try to learn everything about the tree that you can without looking at it.” The student is led back to the group, spun around three times and the blindfold is removed.
The Group tree-hugging lesson goes on to instruct the facilitator “after everyone has hugged a tree, been spun around and sat down, remove the blindfolds and find out how many kids can identify the trees they hugged. If it’s a nice day, sit down on the grass and discuss the experience.”
Questions for the “facilitator” to ask:
* How did it feel to hug a tree?
* How did you feel when you recognized the tree you hugged?
* What do you like about trees?
Here’s another part of the lesson called “Life Applications.” Children are to be taken on a walk around the outdoor area of the church. Once back inside “ask about the natural surroundings and human-made sounds. Talk about natural beauty and human-made pollution. If you want, have the kids go back outside and pick up any trash they saw on the walk.”
Question to ask: “How do you think God feels when he sees how people have messed up the beautiful world he created?” Children are then given a game to play to simulate pollution.
In a Group Workbook entitled: “Sunday School Specials” a chapter tells students that “real conservation means remembering to turn off lights, hiking or biking instead of hitching a car ride, and cooling off in the shade instead of in the air conditioning. Kids are often tempted to do things the easy way instead of the ‘green’ way. They need lots of encouragement and affirmation to develop and stick to an environment-conscious lifestyle…” That one line demonstrates an important key to the purpose of Group’s Sunday School curriculum—to promote a political agenda based on pagan earth worship rather than Christian values.
Are your children safe from pre-programmed, behavior-modification processes at your church? Will they gain the solid moral Christian values that you intend for them to receive from a Sunday School lesson? Not if Group is in your Sunday School.
January 3, 2005
By Tom DeWeese
There is an important lesson that bullies never seem to learn: you can only push people so far before they begin to push back. We are starting to see such a response to Big Brother’s assault on American liberties, as average Americans are beginning to push back and say no.
No issue has grabbed the nation’s attention like the invasion of illegal aliens. As hundreds of thousands poured across the U.S. border over the years, changing our culture, affecting our crime rate and diminishing our standard of living, frustrated Americans were told by government that there was nothing to be done about it.
Suddenly, early in 2005, a determined group of volunteers organized vigils at the hottest spots along the border, photographing and reporting on the highly organized invasion. As the news media began to carry these reports on the nightly news, Americans became incensed. The tide began to turn. Congress has taken action, passing several pieces of legislation aimed at strengthening the border, including larger budgets for the Border Patrol and fencing. What Congress has not yet done is pass the Bush Administration’s scheme for amnesty for these lawbreakers. And that’s another good thing. Americans had enough and pushed back.
Protection of private property finally hit the front pages in 2005, after blatant theft by government. The use by local communities of Eminent Domain to take private homes simply to raise tax revenues or line the pockets of private businesses has caused pain and outrage for several decades. Of course, the use of Eminent Domain is absolutely essential for the implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development.
In a shocking decision by the Supreme Court (Kelo VS New London, CT), such grabs of private property were legalized, setting off a nationwide cry of outrage and the creation of property rights protection legislation at all levels of government. Property owners are demanding that government protect their rights and are pushing back.
Also on the private property scene, efforts were launched in Congress in 2005 to “fix” the Endangered Species Act (ESA), perhaps the worst law ever to be enacted in Congress. For more than 30 years the ESA has been at the root of massive private property invasions, destroying whole industries like timber and ranching. The ESA has been used by radical environmentalists to destroy the very concept of private property, insisting instead that government make every decision concerning land use.
Though several members of Congress spoke loudly of “fixing” this sad situation, the original draft legislation carried only an anemic pretense of property rights protection. In response, property rights activists rose up in protest and managed to force the legislation’s authors to add stronger property protections. This effort represented the first time in the long ESA debate that property rights protection became the focus of the fight, and the first time that radical greens were forced to give ground on the issue. People are tired of taking second place to misplaced radicalism and are pushing back.
Americans are beginning to understand that there is something very wrong with the United Nations. Sold on an image of being simply a place where nations can come to air their grievances and keep the peace, the UN has instead become a scandal-infested, hellhole bent on infecting the world with the disease of global control.
2005 has seen a shift in public opinion against the UN and Congress is threatening to withhold U.S. dues payments unless something is done. Americans like their independence and sovereignty and are pushing back against the UN’s self-imposed boundaries.
The pubic schools continue to turn out stupid kids, even after billions have been spent on new buildings, higher paid teachers and federally-dictated curriculum. Parents are beginning to figure out that the main problem is federal meddling and are demanding a return to local control. Parents are beginning to push back.
Using the excuse of terrorism, the federal government has expanded its power over American civil liberties, using any excuse to look into private documents; invade homes without search warrants; wire tap at will; even setting up a national ID card which every state will be forced to provide by the end of next year.
As a result, Congress has taken a surprising turn in refusing to re-authorize the Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress only days after the 911 attacks and was never read by a single member. Free Americans are refusing to quietly give up their personal privacy and liberty when it has literally no effect on fighting terrorism. Americans are beginning to push back against those who seek power for power’s sake.
Finally, this Christmas, Americans (not just those who consider themselves to be fundamentalist Christians) have had about enough of the multicultural claptrap which dictates that all ideas and beliefs must take precedent over Christian traditions. This year, Americans began to push the bullies aside and take back Christmas with a defiant shout of “Merry Christmas.”
It’s encouraging that the spirit of liberty is beginning to reawaken among Americans. It is gratifying to see a unified punch thrown at the bullies. But…Americans beware. The bullies never take a punch lying down. And Big Brother never sleeps. As Americans take a stand for their liberties, the bullies are already plotting how to redirect our emotions toward very bad or halfhearted solutions that may, in the end, make things much worse, with greater loss of liberty. In other words, the rhetoric may well be there, the solutions won’t.
For example, the White House has been severely beaten up on the illegal immigration issue. President Bush has been simply wrong in trying to appease Mexican President, Vicente Fox’s unreasonable demands to allow an open border between our two countries. Bush continues to push for his “guest worker” plan to allow an unknown number of illegal aliens free passage back and forth across the border for an unknown period of time. It’s an amnesty that the country is in no mood to accept.
However, unless Americans stand strong in rejecting such an unworkable scheme, the President will demand and get it through Congress as part of a “compromise” solution. That solution would allow millions of undocumented aliens to continue to work and gain American services, while little is known about them, including their whereabouts and their reasons for being in this country. The only compromise will be that the President gets the plan that he and Fox have wanted all along, while the tough new immigration control legislation that has already passed Congress will be watered down to complete ineffectiveness. The bully wins.
Meanwhile, though the House of Representatives has already passed legislation to overturn parts of the Kelo decision and punish communities that use Eminent Domain for private gain, the Senate has not. If it fails to act, the usual Washington game of getting in front of the cameras with tough talk and no action will prevail. There will be a perception of action, with no results. Property owners must keep Congress’s feet to the fire and force passage of the Property Rights Protection Act in the Senate. Meanwhile, there must also continue to be an organized effort to pass property rights legislation in every single state.
Unfortunately, the fix is already in for the Endangered Species Act. In spite of the fact that property rights activists fought with determination to guarantee property rights protections, the usual Washington flimflam was put into high gear. Before the bill, (Rep. Richard Pombo’s Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act) could be voted on, the Environmental lobby forced amendments that diluted or deleted most of the property rights protections, including most of the compensation to property owners who lose their land because an endangered specie appears. Yet, the bill was labeled as a property rights reform.
Now the Senate version, introduced by Senators Lincoln Chaffee and Mike Crapo is even worse. There simply is no property rights language at all in S. 2110 (the Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act.” Yet, the bill is still called “reform” and the news shows are full of debates over how this bill damages the ESA in favor of selfish landowners. Here is a classic case of the bullies grabbing the emotions and rhetoric of those who demand liberty and turning it into their own vehicle for yet more oppression. Liberty gets the blame, the bullies win the game.
Once again, the Bush Administration is picking up on the American public’s anti UN feelings and, pounding its chest in front of the cameras, has many freedom-loving Americans convinced it wants major changes at the world body. If not, says our new Ambassador John Bolton, we will withhold dues payments. He calls it a “revolution of reform.”
American leadership must be very careful what it asks for when calling for reform. That’s because “reform” the United Nations is completely different from the kind Ambassador Bolton is referring to. To the UN, reform means more power, global governance. UN leadership envisions a world in which there are no borders. There is common currency. There is one standing army. There is one body that speaks for everyone. One set of rules.
Total control brings about total corruption. The UN is a criminal enterprise that no freedom-loving nation should ever be a part of. If the U.S. continues down this dangerous road of “reform,” then, once again, the bullies will flip the issue to their own advantage. There’s only one way for lovers of freedom to push back and that’s to push us out of the UN completely.
One very dark place where the United States finds itself is membership in the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Complying with UNESCO policy, the U.S. is systematically implementing a federal public school curriculum that is fraught with propaganda that teaches our children to accept that very same UN worldview of “commonism.”
Most in Congress fail to see that the reason public education is turning out illiterate children is the direct connection to the implementation of a federally mandated/UNESCO curriculum. Instead, Congress responds to parent anger and frustration by implementing more and more of the same.
Parents have a chance to push back in an effective way in the new year by demanding that Congress enact new legislation called the “Freedom in Education Act,” which clearly states that no federal funds will be used to dictate a federal curriculum.
America is certainly in a war with terrorism. We, of course, must take measures to protect ourselves. But a law that says the government no longer has to comply with established rules that guarantee our liberties is bad law and must be fixed. Congress has so far stood up to these very bad provisions of the Patriot Act. No one has said the whole law needs to be thrown out. But surrendering liberties to government no matter how unrelated or ineffective in fighting terrorism is just a bully demanding his way.
Next year’s Christmas season will be an interesting one to watch to see if stores finally drop their opposition to saying “Merry Christmas.” If so, Americans will know they successfully stood up to the bullies and rubbed Christmas snow in their faces.
Now, it’s time to stand up to the bullies in government too. Real results, not meaningless compromise, is the bully’s worst enemy. Push back.
