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The report above is a comprehensive overview of gendercide and the One-Child Policy in China, as well as what All Girls Allowed has been doing since our launch on June 1, 2010, to expose the truth, rescue girls & mothers, and celebrate what God is doing to restore life, value and dignity. If you are not able to view the flash animation above, please go to http://www.allgirlsallowed.org.
By John W. Whitehead
It’s been a year of populist uprisings, economic downturns, political assassinations, and one scandal after another, but on the civil liberties front, things were particularly grim.
Welcome to the new total security state. The U.S. government now has at its disposal a technological arsenal so sophisticated and invasive as to render any constitutional protections null and void. And these technologies are being used by the government to invade the privacy of the American people.
GPS tracking and secret spying on Americans. As a case before the U.S. Supreme Court makes clear, the government is taking full advantage of GPS technology to keep tabs on American citizens, and in the process, is not only violating the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures but is putting an end, once and for all, to any expectation of privacy in public places.
Internet surveillance. In late July 2011, the House Judiciary Committee passed the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” which laid the groundwork for all internet traffic to be easily monitored by government officials.
Intrusive pat-downs, virtual strip searches and screening stations. Under the direction of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), American travelers have been subjected to all manner of searches ranging from whole-body scanners and enhanced patdowns at airports to bag searches in train stations. Some security experts predict that checkpoints and screening stations will eventually be established at all soft targets, such as department stores, restaurants, and schools.
More powers for the FBI. As detailed in the FBI’s operations manual, rules were relaxed in order to permit the agency’s 14,000 agents to search law enforcement and private databases, go through household trash, and deploy surveillance teams, without having any factual basis for suspecting them of wrongdoing. These new powers extend the agency’s reach into the lives of average Americans and effectively transform the citizenry into a nation of suspects, reversing the burden of proof so that we are now all guilty until proven innocent.
Patriot Act redux. Congress pushed through a four-year extension of three controversial provisions in the USA Patriot Act that authorize the government to use aggressive surveillance tactics in the so-called war against terror. Since being enacted in 2001, the Patriot Act has driven a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights.
Drones over America. Legislation allowing drones—pilotless, remote-controlled aircraft that have been used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan—to fly in general American airspace cleared Congress. However, police agencies across the nation are already beginning to use spy drones. Just recently, police in North Dakota arrested a family of farmers using information acquired by a spy drone.
Increased arrests for recording encounters with police. Thanks to ubiquitous cell phone technology, more Americans are recording police encounters. Consequently, police have begun arresting those who attempt to record them, citing wiretap laws as justification for the arrests.
Terrorism Liaison Officers. In another attempt to control and intimidate the population, the government has introduced Terrorism Liaison Officers (TLOs) into our midst. These individuals are authorized to report “suspicious activity” which can include such innocuous activities as taking pictures with no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements and drawings, taking notes, conversing in code, espousing radical beliefs, and buying items in bulk.
Fusion centers. TLOs report back to so-called “fusion centers”—data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency—which constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected—the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police—a relationship which will make a transition to martial law that much easier.
Merger of the government and the police, and the establishment of a standing army. At all levels (federal, local and state), through the use of fusion centers, information sharing with the national intelligence agencies, and monetary grants for weapons and training, the government and the police have joined forces. In the process, the police have become a “standing” or permanent army, one composed of full-time professional soldiers who do not disband.
Court rulings affirming the right of police to invade our homes without warrants. In Barnes v. State, the Indiana Supreme Court broadly ruled that citizens don’t have the right to resist police officers who enter their homes illegally, which is the law in most states. In Kentucky v. King, the U.S. Supreme Court gave police carte blanche authority to break into homes or apartments without a warrant.
Bringing the war home. America became the new battleground in the war on terror. A perfect example of this is the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Contained within this massive defense bill are several provisions which, taken collectively, re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law—our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States. In short, this defense bill not only decimates the due process of law and habeas corpus for anyone perceived to be an enemy of the United States, but it radically expands the definition of who may be considered the legitimate target of military action.
What does 2012 hold for us? Only time will tell. But as Jane Addams, the first U.S. woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize advised, “America’s future will be determined by the home and the school. The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live.” If we want to avert certain disaster in the form of authoritarianism, then we’d do well to start teaching the principles of freedom to our young people right away and hope the lesson sticks.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org
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By Tom McFeely
(NEW YORK C-FAM) For decades, a basic tenet of the international population-control lobby has been that declining fertility rates will generate a more stable international order. But according to an impressive panel of scholars who have contributed to a new book, this scenario of “geriatric peace” is untenably optimistic.
Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics is a collection of nine research essays, published by Potomac Books and edited by C-FAM senior vice president Susan Yoshihara and C-FAM senior fellow Douglas Sylva. In the book’s foreword, demographer and political economist Nicholas Eberstadt applauds its contributors for tackling the “profound and as-yet unanswered questions” associated with population decline and international politics.
The prevailing assumption that relatively old countries are predisposed automatically to peace is not historically defensible, as Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics points out. In the last century relatively aged regimes like Nazi Germany and Serbia in the 1990s were notable for their aggression against younger neighbors, and in classical history democratic Athens reacted to the demographic shock of a devastating plague by initiating a series of costly and ill-judged military actions.
Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics begins with three chapters, written by Phillip Longman, James R. Holmes and Francis Sempa, that set forth an analytical framework for assessing the interaction between geopolitics and demographic decline. The rest of the book is devoted to case studies of six key global actors: Russia, Europe and Japan, which are all wrestling with below-replacement fertility rates; the rising Asian powers of China and India, whose futures will be differentiated by strikingly different demographic profiles; and the United States, whose “demographic exceptionalism” makes it the only major developed power to resist depopulation.
In Russia, births declined by a stunning 50% during the period 1987–1999. Murray Feshbach analyzes the effects of this baby blight in the context of military recruitment. Exacerbated by the widespread incidence of HIV and tuberculosis, the country’s severe shortage of fit young males “will lead to a more tenuous situation in Russian society, including the military, than the economic dimension would portend,” Feshbach predicts.
Japan has sought to ameliorate its own demographic challenge by substituting high-tech weaponry for soldiers. In the process, “the minimal defense capabilities that Japan should retain as an independent nation have already been forfeited,” according to one Japanese general. These limitations might also restrict Japan from contributing effectively to regional military alliances. If so, Toshi Yoshihara warns in his strategic analysis, this “could add tremendous volatility to alliance politics and trigger competitive great power dynamics at the regional level that could nevertheless have global reverberations.”
Faced with similar demographic constraints, Europe is seeking to exercise “soft power” (as opposed to military and economic “hard power”) through its domination of multilateral institutions, and also on continued high immigration. Whether the multilateralist approach will be effective is entirely unknown, Douglas Sylva notes, while Europe’s fertility rates are now so low it would require an immigration influx far beyond what the continent can accommodate.
Sylva suggests European policymakers instead consider a radically different approach of trying to advantage their own native-born “family-oriented women” to increase birth rates. Writes Sylva, “Doing so, of course, would force Europe to abandon some of its most cherished tenets of feminism and multiculturalism, a step for which there is little evidence to suggest any European governments are prepared to take, despite the geopolitical consequences.”
Tom McFeely writes for C-FAM. This article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.
Posted in politics
Tagged international politics, population control, security issues
By Congressman Steve Austria
During the last Congress, our country witnessed the passage of several costly pieces of legislation that I opposed, including the $1 trillion “stimulus” package and countless “bailouts.” I have and will continue to support reversing this egregious spending and getting our nation back on a path to prosperity. That is why I cosponsored and strongly supported two bills that provided a solution for real change to our nation’s spending practices. The Cut, Cap and Balance Act (H.R. 2560) and the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution (H. J. Res. 2) called for cuts in our current federal spending levels and caps for the future spending by Congress. The Balanced Budget Amendment required Congress not to spend more than it receives in revenues while also providing a limited exception in times of war and serious military conflicts.
Jobs and the Economy
With the national unemployment rate at or above 8 percent for 34 consecutive months, it is clear that the borrowing and spending policies of this Administration have not worked. Since the failed $1 trillion “stimulus” was enacted, unemployment has averaged to 9.4 percent.
To jump start our economy and get Americans back to work, we must reverse the direction of borrowing and spending that this Administration and the previous Congress had led us. Since January, my Republican colleagues and I have worked furiously to cut spending and rein in government. We have passed 28 bipartisan jobs bills that now await action by the Senate. These bills remove the burdensome regulations that have plagued our small business owners and job creators, and promote common-sense, pro-growth policies. It is time to get America back to what it does best-create, innovate and lead.
Tax Policies
I was pleased to be a part of the effort in repealing the “1099 Provision,” which mandated that all businesses file an IRS Form-1099 for any vendor with which they have more than $600 in yearly transactions, resulting in burdensome costs for small businesses. This provision, added to President Obama’s health care law, had a adverse impact on small businesses and was included as a method to finance this new entitlement program.
Last week I supported a bill that passed the House that provided a full year extension of reduced tax rates, offered job incentives, extended doctors pay for our seniors care, and decreased discretionary spending by over $80 billion in the next ten years without raising taxes on small businesses. Our nation’s hardworking taxpayers and job creators deserve a solution that reflects real efforts to cutting Washington’s reckless debt, and focuses on creating certainty in our financial market to grow long-term jobs that are needed to putting our economy back on a robust path.
Energy Policies
We all want to be good stewards of the environment, but America must become less reliant on foreign on by using all of our natural resources we have here domestically. This includes wind, solar, nuclear, ethanol, clean coal, natural gas and oil. Unfortunately, the current policies offered by government bureaucrats are counterproductive, ignoring the energy resources we have domestically and excessively enforcing burdensome regulations that are costly for our nation’s employers and families. Expanding American energy production will lower prices, create new American jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, strengthen our national security and raise revenue to help tackle the $14 trillion national debt.
House Republicans launched the American Energy Initiative – an ongoing effort to stop government policies that drive up gasoline prices; to grow American energy production to lower costs and create more jobs; and promote an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to increase all forms of American energy. I was also a cosponsor of the Roadmap for America’s energy Future (H.R. 909). This legislation aims to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and move forward with leasing and drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and with oil shale leasing programs halted by the Administration. It also moves forward with environmentally responsible exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), an exploration that could lead to 1 million barrels of domestic oil each day. Opening domestic offshore drilling will help decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil – something that is essential to our energy policy and our national security.
Government Takeover of Health Care
Last Congress, President Obama signed a $2 trillion health care bill into law, which increases the size of government; cuts more than $500 billion to Medicare that increases premiums on hardworking American families. These were all reasons why I opposed the so-called health care reform bill and voted this year to repeal the law by supporting H.R. 2, the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. Congress must work hard to give Americans the quality health care options they deserve by: ensuring everyone has the right to pick their own doctor; letting doctors and patients make health care decisions – not Washington bureaucrats; and guaranteeing access to affordable health care and health insurance for all.
What Lies Ahead
This past year in Congress brought with it many difficult decisions, and as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I understand the difficult spending decisions. But, the conclusion of this year also brings new opportunities for next year to revise the expansion of the federal government and the regulatory uncertainties that are directly affecting our nation’s hardworking taxpayers and job creators, which our nation’s prosperity is dependent on.
Posted in economy, health care, politics, taxes
Tagged Capitol Hill, year-end review
2011 Year in Review: Summary
When Governor John R. Kasich and Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor took office one year ago, Ohio faced historic challenges. Over 400,000 jobs were lost in the previous four years, unemployment peaked and remained at 10.6 percent between August 2009 and February 2010, and the state faced an $8 billion budget shortfall going into Fiscal Year 2012. For Gov. Kasich, job creation has been priority number one from day one. With his vision, Ohio has begun making the necessary government reforms to cultivate a jobs-friendly environment so Ohioans can get back to work, and our state can start moving in the right direction.
See JobsOhio Year-End Summary http://governor.ohio.gov/Portals/0/pdf/JobsOhio_Overview_FINAL.pdf
God help us to end poverty in our time.
The poverty of having a child with too little to eat and no place to
sleep, no air, sunlight and space to breathe, bask, and grow.
The poverty of watching your child suffer hunger or get sicker and
sicker and not knowing what to do or how to get help because you
don’t have another dime or a car, money, or health insurance.
The poverty of working your fingers to the bone every day taking care
of somebody else’s children and neglecting your own, and still
not being able to pay your bills.
The poverty of having a job which does not let you afford a stable
place to live and being terrified you’ll become homeless and
lose your children to foster care.
The poverty of losing your job, running out of unemployment benefits,
and no other help in sight.
The poverty of working all your life caring for your own children and
having to start all over again caring for the grandchildren you love.
The poverty of earning a college degree, having children, opening a
day care center, and taking home $300 a week-or a month-if
you’re lucky.
The poverty of loneliness and isolation and alienation-having no
one to call or visit, tell you where to get help, assist you in
getting it, or care if you’re living or dead.
The poverty of having too much and sharing too little and having the
burden of nothing to carry.
The poverty of convenient blindness and deafness and indifference to
others.
The poverty of low aim and paltry purpose, of weak will and tiny
vision, of big meetings and small actions, of loud talk and sullen
grudging service.
The poverty of believing in nothing, standing for nothing, sharing
nothing, sacrificing nothing, struggling with others for nothing.
The poverty of pride and ingratitude for God’s gifts of life and
children and family and freedom and home and country and not wanting
for others what you want for yourself.
The poverty of greed for more and more and more, ignoring, blaming,
and exploiting the needy, and taking from the weak to please the
strong.
The poverty of addiction to more and more things; drugs, drink, work,
self, violence, power, fleeting fame, and an unjust status quo.
The poverty of fear which keeps you from doing the thing you think is
right.
The poverty of convenient ignorance about the needs of those around
you and of despair and cynicism.
God help us end poverty in our time, in all its faces and places,
young and old, rural, urban, suburban and small town too, and in every
color of humans You have made everywhere.
God help us to end poverty in our time in all its guises-inside
and out-physical and spiritual, so that all our and Your
children may live the lives that you intend.
First published in Child Watch on december 16, 2011 by Marian Wright Edelman, President of Children’s Defense Fund.
By Daniel Downs
Christmas is a celebration of the fulfilled promise of a new life, a baby. Honoring this new born destiny presents to the world a universal hope. It is about God being with us now and we being with God in the future.
Christmas is about parents, parenting, naming, and the common work of fulfilling God’s revealed purpose for the world; their world of family, our world of common good relationships, and God’s purposed world.
Christmas is thus a celebration of life-giving. Life is God’s gift to the world–to each individual, to each family, and to society. Every morally and materially good relationship contributes to the creation of abundant life for all. This too reflects God’s good will for all people. Its revelation began with the divine promise to Abraham. It was institutionalized through Israel. Its realization was pronounced by angels and manifested in the new born babe of Bethlehem—the one the angels said they would see lying in a lowly manger (Luke 2:1-20). The irony of life is that it always begins in utter helpless poverty, but God gives everyone the natural riches of loving parents, caring society, and nature’s bounty.
Material and monetary gifts as well as profits are meant to serve the prophetic purpose of life-destiny. Even the three wise men brought gifts to the new born babe that not only made him and his family very rich but also provided the means to fulfill his purpose in life (Matthew 2:1-12).
The significance of Christmas is how God reveals and fulfills His part in the destiny of human life. Human destiny is not a search to find oneself. It is not a hunt for life purpose or meaningful work. Human destiny is a divine revelation that is manifest, reinforced, prepared for, and fulfilled. It is the life-work, a multifaceted employment, of living well. Living well is not best defined by financial worth but by the quality of life made and given. A good life is not made alone. The author of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, wrote: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” If God made us within a community of others, it stands to reason that we must do the same. Good persons are reproduced in a redemptive society of families committed to forming each newly born child into a good citizen of our heavenly Father’s world. In God’s world, the divinely ordained work of living means being and making to be good children, good parents, good spouses, good neighbors, good laborers or entrepreneurs, good citizens. As God provided for Jesus through the magi, God wants to provide everything needed to fulfill our own destiny whether it be with spouse, home, material goods, and understanding of the divine purpose for life. This God did for humanity’s first parent. God gave him a wife, Eve. God gave them a home in the garden. He gave them all of nature’s produce for sustenance. God also gave them trusteeship over all the riches of nature including all living creatures (Genesis 1:26-31 &2:7-24). Then, God gave a world full of families to help each other fulfill life’s destiny.
The apostle Paul referred to Jesus as the new Adam (1 Cor 15:45-49). His birth was the beginning of a new humanity. The accomplishment of his life work ushered in the realization of God’s redemptive plan for all people. The revelation of Jesus his life-purpose was first given to his parents, Mary and Joseph. God’s prepared them to prepare Jesus for its fulfillment. Therefore, the life of Jesus Christ is the model of God’s plan for every parent and child.
Jesus’ life is a revelation and history, albeit a sketchy one, of how God fulfills His plan for the world through one family of chosen parents and chosen child (to be). The life-work of Jesus—the chosen child—could not have happened without chosen parents and the entire lineage of other chosen ones. Both gospels of Matthew and Luke clearly shows the ancestry of Jesus going back through King David, to Judah, Abraham, Noah, and finally to Adam (Matthew 1:1-17 & Luke 3:23-38).
The same is true for all of us. Whether seemingly big or miniscule, our individual purpose in God’s plan for the world is connected to a host of ancestors going back to Adam and Eve. Every one of them was chosen by God for our life-work to be fulfilled.
Like Jesus, every one of us was born to fulfill a specific part in the plan of God for the world.
As the new Adam, Jesus birth represents the rebirth of humanity. Every human being born since Jesus has been represented by Him to God. Everyone has had or will have the opportunity to experience the redemption, reconciliation, renewing, and parenthood of God, who never intended to father only Jesus. God wants all people to become His children, living in His household, under His authority and care. In one sense, all humans are children of God because all exist as God created them to exist. Yet, some children live without parents. Some people who have parents live as though they do not. Others exist without any sense of history, tradition, value, future hope, purpose or legacy, all of which begins in a family household connected to extended family within a society and world of families. Even though some discover it in social institutions like school, workplace, military, social mission, mosque, synagogue, temple or church, membership in them does not equate to being part of God’s household. Without a life forming relationship with God, hearing His defining words, and obeying His law or rules meant to direct behavior and work, no one can claim to be in the household of God. For life in God’s household is eternal and not limited to temporary materiality of the present.
Jesus represents life in the household of God. His birth was the beginning not the end. His untimely death was the means to a redemptive end, the fulfillment of God’s redemption of all people. His resurrection represents the future for a new humanity. As his apostle Paul taught, Jesus was the first born from the dead not the last (Colossians 1:18; Romans8:29). Every one of us will be reborn but only those who have been faithful to God will continue to live in His household.
Wayward people often behave in ways that land them in jail or prison. The faithless and unfaithful also will live eternal life behind bars in the prison called hell.
Jesus is the way of escape in the present.
Christmas is a mass celebration of eternal life. The end of life is to live eternally in and to the glory of God the Father. This is accomplished by living the good life in God’s household, doing what is right, and fulfilling one’s divinely purposed life-work.
What God revealed to Mary and Joseph, to Elizabeth and Zachariah, to Sarah and Abraham was the life work and purpose of their first born child. Each has to live so as to fulfill it. For Jesus to fulfill his life work and its purpose, he has to live without sin to the very end. We too have to learn to do the same. For without holiness (likeness of God) no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14 ). That is, knowone will see Him after this life in heavenly city.
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