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Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas

By Selwyn Duke

Ah, Christmastime.  Manger scenes and mistletoe, trees and tinsel, Santa and celebration, gift-giving and gratitude . . . and the ACLU roasting traditions on an open fire.  Sadly, the last thing has become as much a seasonal expectation as the others, and the American Communist Lawyers Union’s practice of suing our culture into oblivion has gotten a lot of ink.  Yet there is another attack on Christmas — actually, another attack on Christianity itself — one that could ultimately prove more damaging than the usual atheistic assaults.  And it’s embraced by religionists themselves.

I’m sure you’ve heard the charges.  Christmas is a “pagan holiday,” they say.  It originated with a celebration dedicated to Saturn (the Roman god of agriculture), which, upon coming to full flower, took place between December 17 and 23.  Or perhaps it was inspired by the commemoration of a sun-god’s birth, and here we have two candidates: the Indo-Iranian god Mithras and the Roman god Sol.  And people often seem to confuse these two deities — and their festivals — mixing and matching them in a game of musical myths.  But it doesn’t really matter because both Mithras’ and Sol’s mythical births, we’re told, occurred on the same day: December 25^th.

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The Jihadists in America

By Selwyn Duke

It is a bucolic region of verdant meadows, rolling hills, and babbling brooks, a largely peaceful place where big city hustle and bustle and crime are very far away. Yet, like a pig in a beauty contest, within this pastoral setting lies something incongruent: a Jihadist training center. In this compound, women are taught to slit throats and mount assault-weapon attacks and, presumably, some brand of Islamic piety is the order of the day. But this place isn’t found in the Mideast’s Fertile Crescent or in sub-Saharan Africa. It's name is Islamberg. It's in the town of Hancock.

And it's in upstate New York.

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The Constitution: Living Document or Childish Document?

By Selwyn Duke

It’s ironic that the more we describe our constitution as a “living document,” the more we turn it into a dead letter.  As to this terminal state, consider the current debate over health-care reform.  How many politicians give the constitutionality of the mammoth bills spawned by the Houses even the slightest consideration? Why, Nancy Pelosi must not have, as she was so “shocked” when asked about it that the only reply she could muster was “Are you serious?  Are you serious?!”  But I suppose it’s a good tactic to register shock when you can’t awe.

When leftists do deign to consider the matter seriously, they may take a leaf out of esteemed intellectual Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s book and aver that the Constitution should not be “stuck in time.”  Often missed in this debate, however, is that conservatives don’t say it should be stuck in time — just stuck in law — which isn’t changed by time but by people.  That is, certain people.

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Understanding the Global-warming Jihadists

By Selwyn Duke

"I was born with a chronic anxiety about the weather," said John Burroughs in 1877.  Today, anxiety about the weather is more common than ever, although it’s not inborn but cultivated in schoolrooms, through television sets and by lying, rapacious ex-vice presidents.  And I have anxiety about the weather, too — especially when it’s being used to promote a destructive agenda.

The Covetous Crew of the COP15

By Selwyn Duke

While Copenhagen seems poised to enjoy a white Christmas, an equally noticeable color in the city was red, with flag-waving communists and socialists protesting and hoisting banners with messages such as “CAPITALISM MEANS WAR” and “CAPITALISM ISN’T WORKING, Crush the system not the climate.” They were well represented within the conference as well, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe and Bolivian President Evo Morales all registering such sentiments. 

The limelight-lusting Chavez, who undermines his nation’s rule of law and suppresses its press with equal vigor, spoke for four times longer than his allotted five minutes, leaving plenty of time to bang his communist drum. Reporting on the Venezuelan’s comments, ABC.net.au, wrote:

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The Pathology of the Rich Socialist

By Selwyn Duke

People such as George Soros and Michael Moore certainly talk a good game, but the next Mother Teresa they are not. Mother Teresa never criticized the free-market system; wealth just wasn't for her. Soros and Moore are quite the opposite. They will never take a vow of poverty and dedicate themselves to helping the poor. They just want our civilization to take a vow of poverty and become poor.

Fathers Jailed for Opting Children Out of Sex Ed

By Selwyn Duke

Could you imagine being jailed simply because you decided to opt your children out of sex education? Well, this is exactly what is happening to a number of fathers in Germany. And, if certain forces in the United States have their way, such a policy could one day find its way to our shores as well.

This story is unfolding in the German state of Salzkotten, where the government has decided that all children must be indoctrinated with a state-designed curriculum — including explicit sex education that most parents would agree is inappropriate for children. Bob Unruh reports on the story at WorldNetDaily.com, writing, “The students who are being held out of sex education classes also are not being allowed by their parents to participate in a play-acting program called ‘My Body Belongs to Me,’ which essentially teaches children how to engage in sex....”

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On the Front Lines of Global Warming Hysteria: Your Kids

By Selwyn Duke

When I was a wee lad in elementary school — this was back when global cooling was dogma — we kids had all heard about killer bees. You may remember the story: Scientists in Brazil had bred the African honey bee with a European honey bee and succeeded in creating, well, a really mean bee. These hybrids then escaped from their captors and started spreading throughout the Americas, bullying the nice bees and occasionally killing people. This prompted some sensationalistic stories in the media about the perils of these impudent insects, and we kids were scared. Would K-i-l-l-e-r B-e-e-s (gasp!) be the end of us? I suppose it could have made a good movie. The “Bees from Brazil,” anyone?

Widow Says Husband Driven to Heart Attack after False Accusation of Pedophilia

We’ve all heard about false accusations of sexual criminality, incidents such as the 2006 Duke University rape frame-up case. They are a form of psychological molestation and can destroy a person’s life just as being physically molested can. Well, now such an accusation might have ended a man’s life.

The hapless victim, 63-year-old British citizen Bryan Davies, died of a massive heart attack last Friday after months of community harassment resulting from a false accusation of pedophilia. And what was the reason for the accusation?

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Boys’ Educational Failure is No Mystery

By Selwyn Duke

A lot has changed since 1960. If Connie Francis were to sing “Where the Boys Are” today, she would not likely be talking about Ft. Lauderdale. And she probably wouldn’t be talking about college, either. This is because, in a decades-old phenomenon, boys have increasingly been stumbling academically.

Colleges have taken note of this and, in certain cases (mostly private institutions), have actually been favoring boys in the admissions process. It’s an interesting, albeit unofficial, twist on affirmative action. But this, in turn, has been noted by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, inspiring it to investigate whether colleges discriminate against girls by admitting less qualified boys.

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