Bradley Monton, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, identifies himself as an atheist. But in his book Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, he explains why he thinks teaching students about the concept of a designer for nature is good pedagogy. 

From an interview in Salvo:

"My young son and I walked into a games shop to look for a present. Who knew we’d find sex and violence," writes Murray Williams at Cape Argus, published in South Africa. 

"So, like, can you deliberately skip this stuff" to play Grand Theft Auto V?" they asked the sales reps.

Answer: "No. You have to do the torture and anal sex thing [with a prostitute] to get to the next level."

Grand Theft Auto V is produced by Rockstar Games -- "Pushing Filth and Ruining Lives. Made Easy," states a headline banner on its website.

Rockstar Games is a label owned by Take-Two Interactive Software, which is "headquartered in New York City."

"The Rockstar Games [RG] label was founded in 1998 to create the most innovative and progressive interactive entertainment," states the Take-Two website. RG are "publishers of such popular game franchises as Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, Bully, Manhunt and more."

On Sept. 20, 2013, Take-Two released a press statement saying sales of Grand Theft Auto V "Surpass $1 Billion in First Three Days."

Related
Bruni-Sarkozy and the Unbearable Lightness of Nudity
Miley Cyrus: The Tyranny of Porn, the Porn of Tyranny 
Sex Therapists Want to Legalize "Virtual" Child Porn 
Obama's HHS "Grooming" Your Children for Sex 
Rolled Model: Tennis Pro Harkleroad "Proud of My Body"

Bruce Thornton writes at Frontpagemag.com:

A few days ago CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin, speaking about the Republican House bill defunding Obamacare, commented, "Certainly not the way the Founding Fathers maybe drew this thing up."

It’s certainly a surprise to hear an anchor on CNN, an organization biased in favor of progressives, appealing to the authority of the Constitution. For a century the progressives have been telling us that the Constitution is an outmoded document from a different age, and needs to be "modernized" to meet the challenges of a new world. . . .

Ms. Baldwin vs. Knowledge vs. U.S. Constitution: "If we probe Baldwin’s appeal to constitutional authority to buttress her attack on the House bill, then, we can see that she knows little or nothing about why the Founders 'drew this thing up' the way they did," Thornton writes.

"The key issue is Article 1.7.1.: 'All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.' We need to understand the reasons why the Framers gave the House this responsibility."

Founders' Distrust of Brooke Baldwin: "We should remember that the Founders’ distrust of human nature extended also to elites that monopolized power, as well as to the masses." Thornton explains. "Hence 'elites' in the government had to be 'checked and balanced' as much as the masses.

Thornton points out that "against those continuing to argue for giving the Senate the power of the purse, George Mason countered, 'An aristocratic body, like the screw in mechanics, working its way by slow degrees, and holding fast whatever it gains, should ever be suspected of an encroaching tendency. ––The purse strings should never be put into its hands.' As a compromise to placate the smaller states, the Senate was given the power to add amendments to the money bills originating in the House."

And That's a Wrap: "Contrary to Baldwin, then, the House bill to defund Obamacare is consistent with the intent of the Founders," Thornton concludes. "The law is unpopular, with 52% of the people opposing it. Its exceptions and exemptions doled out to political favorites are unjust, its constitutional violations blatant, and its incompetent construction, confused rollout, and unforeseen future costs dangerous for the public fisc and our exploding debt. If ever there was a 'grievance' needing 'redress,' Obamacare is it."

Related
House Defunds Obamacare, Keeps Federal Government Open 
"Trainwreck": Boehner to Allow Vote to De-Fund Obamacare 
Republicans Vote to Boycott CNN, NBC Debates If Clinton Specials Air

Writing at Investor's Business Daily, Monica Showalter discusses 6 patterns of propaganda communist dictator Vladimir I. Lenin used to justify broken promises, consolidate power, and "transform society fundamentally."

Using Showalter's headings and some of my own, those patterns are as follows: 

1. Ends Justify the Means: "In setting off civil war, Lenin put Russia on a war footing that justified any atrocity, broken promise or use of propaganda that served to establish communism."

2. Perception of Power: "As early as 1903, at a party congress, Lenin won a membership issue by a single vote. But from then on he called his faction 'the Bolsheviks,' or majoritarians, and his opponents 'Mensheviks,' or minoritarians. It didn't matter that the Bolsheviks never were a true majority among Russia's revolutionaries; what mattered was the perception of power."

3. Media Monopoly: "Lenin simply closed other papers, leaving only the Bolshevik publications. The resultant monopoly intensified the impact of his Bolshevik message, according to historian Robert Service."

4. Demonization: "In denouncing opponents, Lenin was obsessive, virulent and personal, calling them 'bloodsuckers,' 'insects,' 'spiders,' 'leeches' and 'vampires.' . . . But Lenin rarely made such statements in public. . . . In public, Lenin wanted to be pictured as a jolly apostle of Marxism."

5. State Terror on the Innocent and the Guilty: "'We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more,' wrote Lenin's commissar for justice."

6. Blame Your Predecessor: "As happened anytime socialism ever had been tried, it was a failure. Lenin's much-desired civil war cost 13 million lives and his ruinous economic policies triggered the famine of 1921-1922. YouTube has many videos of Lenin speaking, with the salient feature being his propensity to blame his predecessor, the Czar, for the economic havoc."

Related
Ho Chi Minh, Obama’s Freedom Fighter 
Extremist Obama Again Omits "Creator"
CNN Doubles Down on Hillary Clinton Propaganda Flick 
The Big Lie Lives. But Why?

Drew Zahn reports at WND:

When a speechwriter for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to Twitter to tout her boss’ recent work, a California Democrat Party official blasted back, wishing death and "debilitating diseases" upon her children.

Amanda Carpenter [photo], a speechwriter and senior communications adviser to Cruz, tweeted out Friday morning, "GOP beat gun control, changed Obama’s mind on Syria, is holding the line on amnesty. We can defund Obamacare, too!"

But Allan Brauer [photo], who works as the communications chair for the Democratic Party of Sacramento County in California, fired back a shocking reply, "@amandacarpenter May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases."

"It wasn’t the first time, however, that Brauer, a longtime activist in the homosexuality movement who co-chaired the University of Chicago’s Lesbian/Gay Student Organization in the 1970s, has used Twitter as an outlet for scathing, personal attacks," WND reports.

Related
House Defunds Obamacare, Keeps Federal Government Open
"Gay" Human Rights Commissioner to Evangelical Pastor: You and Your Family "Deserve to Burn in Hell"
Bricks of Tolerance: "Gay" Hate Vandalizes Church, Threatens More Violence 
Son of Lesbian in Paris: Meet the "Gay" Police State

A Bloomberg news story at Newsmax reports:

The U.S. House voted to finance the federal government through mid-December and choke off funding for President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, setting up a showdown with the Senate and the White House. . . .

The Senate is expected to start considering the legislation on Sept. 23 with [a] goal of finishing by Sept. 26.

From the Washington Times: 

"The American people don’t want the government shut down, and they don’t want Obamacare," said House Speaker John A. Boehner, who rallied with fellow Republicans after the vote in a show of unity that seemed designed to quell speculation about a rebellion within the House Republican Conference.

Meanwhile, a Democrat offers death wishes to the children of a Cruz staffer: "Allan Brauer, the communications chair for the Democratic Party of Sacramento, Calif., told [Amanda Carpenter] an aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Tex.), on Friday that he hoped her children 'die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases'." After additional vicious Tweets, Brauer apologized.

Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the House vote is a "waste of time."

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz released a statement: "The fight to save America from Obamacare is just beginning -- it may well go back and forth from the House and Senate several times -- and a united Republican front means that Harry Reid and the President cannot ignore the American people."

Stop the presses. It turns out that philosophy majors can actually make money after graduation: $81,200 annually, the data indicate.  

This is according to "Annual Salary" information collected since 2008 on the "median salary of mid-career graduates without higher degrees," as stated by this chart (click on image to enlarge, scroll to bottom) that appears on the website of Colorado State University. 

A salary of $81,200 means philosophy majors outperform their counterparts who majored in sociology, psychology, art history, English literature, biology, history, business, political science, and chemistry.  

In addition, philosophy majors rank at the very top (with math majors) when it comes to salary growth, meaning the "increase from starting to mid-career median salary of graduates without higher degrees," according to a companion "Salary Growth" chart.

So, whether you are working through Francis Schaeffer's "Basic Philosophic Questions," taking Nancy Pearcey's apologetics classes at HBU, or exploring some of our worldview articles at The Pearcey Report, rejoice: There's bankable gold in them there cogitations. 

Or like Descartes almost said: I think, therefore, I earn.

HT: Gary Hartenburg

On the occasion of an op-ed that went out under Vladimir Putin's name September 11, Michael Johnson at American Spectator discusses the "utterly cynical" world of PR and ghostwriting (ghostwriting is, of course, the fine art of deceiving the public into thinking that your writing was actually "authored" by somebody else). Johnson states:

The 1100-word screed under Putin’s byline was a masterpiece of chutzpah, portraying the Russia president as a God-fearing protector of democracy and stalwart supporter of the United Nations, especially the Security Council where Russia has flagrantly used its veto since the beginning of the Syria conflict. Understandably the reaction in the West has been jaw-droppingly negative.
. . .

The greatest heat in this affair has emanated not from the American public but from the private conference rooms of Ketchum Public Relations, the U.S. agency that actually wrote it for Putin’s team. No original text in Russian has surfaced, most likely because it never existed. The few Russian publications that have picked up the story quote sparingly from the English version.

It is naïve to believe that Vladimir Putin sat down one night at his Kremlin desk and, pen in hand, dashed off this heartfelt opener reminiscent of FDR, “Recent events in Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people . . ."

One wants to say, "Oh puh-leeeeze."

"Major pronouncements such as this one, especially if placed in a major U.S. newspaper, are almost never written by the people who sign them," Johnson explains. "This is where the Ketchums of the PR industry come in. Presidents and CEOs turn to such agencies or hire expensive ex-journalists to make up their self-serving pronouncements. You can ignore the Kremlin spokesman’s quaint assurance that Putin actually jotted down the 'basic content' for this piece and let his aides flesh them out. He was probably out of the loop until late-stage drafts."

Related
Spiritual Corruption Watch: Andersen Book Blows Obama-Ayers Cover on "Dreams" 
American Thinker: Time Blows Lid on "Secret" Sarah Palin Ghostwriter

. . . "It's shutting down authoritarian anarchy that pretends constitutionalism," I wrote yesterday.

But "you can't have anarchy and authoritarianism in a government at the same time," asserts a Facebook friend.

Is that so? Consider:

Obama's authoritarianism is expressed in his rejection of the rules of freedom (e.g., Declaration of Independence, where the center of gravity for human freedom is the Creator, not the state) and relies ultimately on raw power to impose his vision upon Americans (e.g., financial penalties, unending regulation, police, military, domestic spying, and so on).

It is anarchy because behind the mere form of governance is mob rule, czarist rule, unaccountable rule, a kind of lawlessness under the thumb of whoever happens to be occupying the White House.

Anarchy can be expressed not just in social chaos and the absence of form, but also in the authoritarianism of the mob and of the absolutized individual, while maintaining the pretense of form.

A 60s-style Hippie can be utterly authoritarian.

Related
GOP Gets Serious: Wages War on Obamacare
Secularist Washington-Centrism Is Un-American
Francis Schaeffer on Authoritarian Government

Readers of The Pearcey Report may be interested know that I will be speaking at the Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature on the campus of Houston Baptist University on Friday at 2:15. My talk draws on themes from Saving Leonardo and is titled, "Recovering Our Virtue: Does Dickens Succeed in Overcoming the Fact/Value Split in Hard Times?"

In the novel Hard Times Dickens is doing battle with philosophies like empiricism and utilitarianism, which had come to dominate the public sphere of politics and economics. Writing at the height of the industrial revolution, Dickens realized that the impact of these philosophies was reductionistic and dehumanizing, and he raises the question: In an age where Truth has been identified solely with empirical fact, what is the truth status of Goodness and Beauty?

Dickens knew that the outstanding philosopher of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, had undergone a personal crisis (related in Saving Leonardo). He recasts Mill's story as the plot line in the novel.

Here is a brief preview of my remarks:

When John Stuart Mill was born, his father was close friends with Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism. They decided to turn the boy into a kind of experiment: They would educate him from a young age to become a prophet for their utilitarian creed.

And it worked. As a young man, Mill was brilliant. He was writing for professional journals, he had founded several intellectual societies, and he was heralded as the crown prince of an influential utilitarian movement in politics.

But at the age of twenty, Mill suffered a mental crisis. As he wrote in his Autobiography, it came crashing down on him that he had been turned into little more than a "reasoning machine." He felt he had been robbed of entire dimensions of life.

So intense was Mill's depression that he compared himself with someone on the threshold of a religious conversion. Yet he did not find a resolution to his crisis in religion. Instead, he found it in poetry. His depression lifted when he discovered the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the other Romantics.

Now, however, he was faced with a dilemma. The discovery of poetry and beauty had saved his life. But his philosophy did not allow for any form of truth except the empirical and the quanitfiable.

How would Mill resolve the conflict?

And how would Dickens resolve the conflict in his fictional treatment of the same issues? Most importantly, how can we stand against the inhumane reductionism and scientism of our own age and assert once again that Goodness and Beauty are rooted in Truth?

According to the conference website, online registration "is $85 per professional ($95 at the door) or $55 per graduate student ($65 at the door) and includes the Friday dinner meal. In addition, all registrants must be current members of Conference on Christianity and Literature. The membership rates are $35 per year or $60 for two years."

On the topic of conferences, Rick and I are excited to announce that we are developing plans for conferences where together we address the critical challenges of our day, in light of the liberating and reality-oriented principles set forth in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Stayed tuned for updates on this initiative.

"House Speaker John Boehner, in an abrupt turnaround, plans to let Tea Party lawmakers have a vote on de-funding Obamacare as part of a politically risky strategy which Democrats warn could result in a government shutdown," Fox News reports.

On the website, "Don't Fund It," Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas states: "We can de-fund Obamacare if Republican leaders who tell their constituents they’re conservative stand up and act like they’re conservative."

In addition to Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also states on "Don't Fund It": "This is the last opportunity we’re going to have to stop Obamacare before the January 1 deadline so we have to refuse to fund it now."

"GOP leaders unveiled their plan to members [this] morning, teeing up a vote for Friday," according to Fox.

"The law's a trainwreck," Fox quotes Boehner as saying of Obama's grossly misnamed "Affordable Care Act." "It's time to protect American families from this unworkable law," Boehner said.

Related 
27 of 50 States Now Challenging Constitutionality of Obamacare
IRS: Obamacare for Thee but Not for Me 
Poll: 63% Want Obamacare Repealed
Obamacare Will Share Personal Health Info With Federal, State Agencies
Obama's Final Word: Catholics Must Buy/Provide Coverage for Abortion Drugs
Obamacare Mandate: Sterilize 15-Year-Old Girls for Free -- Without Parental Consent
Obamacare: Antithetical to The Declaration
Warning: Obamacare Gives Feds "State Police Power"
Hannity to GOP: If You Don’t Defund Obamacare, "You’ve Lost Me"

Mark Tapson writes at Frontpagemag.com:

Last week at more than 200 colleges and high schools across the nation, students came together to arrange memorials on campus featuring thousands of flags representing each victim of Islamic terrorism on that date.

Who could find that gesture offensive?

Five student protesters at Middlebury College in Vermont, brainwashed by multiculturalist nonsense, that’s who.

For an exploration into the "mind" of an "'anarchaqueer' who 'hates the police' and whose goal is to 'dismantle all systems of oppression,'" and who "decided to respect the massacred dead by dismantling a 9/11 memorial respectful of massacred Americans," read Tapscott's column here.

"Remember," Tapscott concludes, "this is a woman ["queer" Amanda Lickers, photo] who was invited to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization on campus, so there are students at Middlebury supportive enough of her radical multiculturalism to attend a workshop and at least one person there -- a professor or administrator -- with the authority to invite her. Hopefully her vandalism and subsequent unhinged statement will give them second thoughts about asking her back."

See Also
Extremist Prof Arrested After Profane Tirade at Pro-Life Students 
Campus Rape Victim: "I Was in a Safe Zone and My Attacker Didn't Care" 
"Gay" Totalitarianism

It's all too easy to bemoan the problem -- studies show clearly that growing up fatherless greatly increases the chances of a host of social pathologies, from poverty to drugs to violence.

Here's a program that is working on a positive solution: The City University of New York (CUNY) Fatherhood Academy, part of the university's Young Men’s Initiative, is a free, five-month, three-day-a-week program that helps young fathers, from age 18 to 24, earn a GED, prepare for college, get work experience, explore careers, and learn about topics like parenthood.

Seron Douglas, a recent grad of the program, and a single dad of a four-year-old, said, "The program has helped me become a man. I grew up without a father so I had no one to look up to or to learn from. The academy taught me what a father teaches a son -- how to speak to people and how to present myself. It changed my life."

Through the program, he landed a job as a bartender at the U.S. Open, and after this stint he is hoping to find a permanent part-time job with the help of the program. "I am thinking about my future and my son’s future,” said Seron. “I will go to college, get a good job. I never talked like this before."

According to the CUNY Fatherhood Academy, one in three children under the age of 18 in New York City grows up without a dad. This crisis disproportionately impacts the city’s black and Latino children, as 51 percent of black and 46 percent of Latino children are being raised in fatherless households, compared to 11 percent of white children.

"Those statistics change when we introduce education as well as employment -- they change drastically," said program coordinator Raheem Brooks. "Fathers are more present in their children's lives, which then affects poverty."

For more, check out these sources:

* CUNY Fatherhood Academy Helps Young Dads 
* Free NYC Program Helps Young Fathers Get on the Right Track 
* CUNY Fatherhood Academy at LaGuardia Community College Makes Difference in Young Men’s Lives

AFP reports that jihadists are taunting survivors after killing Christians in the ancient Syrian town of Maalula. According to a woman named Rasha:

The jihadists had seized her fiance Atef, who belonged to the town's militia, and brutally murdered him.

"I rang his mobile phone and one of them answered," she said.

"Good morning, Rashrush," a voice answered, using her nickname. "We are from the Free Syrian Army. Do you know your fiance was a member of the shabiha (pro-regime militia) who was carrying weapons, and we have slit his throat."

The man told her Atef had been given the option of converting to Islam, but had refused.

"Jesus didn't come to save him," he taunted.

For more, see the APF report "Syrian Christian 'Made to Convert at Gunpoint'."

Nancy was recently interviewed by Jeremy Dys of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia (FPCWV), and a podcast of the interview is now posted online.

"The next big push in sexual orientation rights is for transgender people. There's an idea that one's physical body has nothing whatsoever to do with who a person really is," states FPCWV. Pearcey Report Editor at Large and HBU Prof. Nancy Pearcey argues "that affirming the transgender lifestyle is damaging to a person's self-image. She talks about how our view of our physical body is linked to our worldview and, consequently, the laws we advocate for."

The interview centers on Nancy's article, "Transgender Politics vs. the Facts of Life," recently published in The Pearcey Report.

Perhaps also of interest to readers is my article "The Revolt of Intelligence Against 'Marriage Equality,'" published at American Thinker and The Pearcey Report.

Among other points, this article examines how the push for "marriage equality" in reality leads to "'marriage elasticity,' with the ultimate goal of 'marriage extinction'." The stated views of a leading lesbian journalist-activist on these matters is most revealing.

We are happy to report more than 468,000 pageviews at The Pearcey Report for the month of August. Thank you all, dear readers!

Penny Starr reports at CNSNews.com:

The Senate Conservatives Fund website shows that 1.2 million people have signed a pledge to defund the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

But a number of top Republicans apparently have refused to sign the pledge, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

Related
A Vote to Fund Obamacare Will Fund Deliberate Destruction of Human Life 
Obama's Final Word: Catholics Must Buy/Provide Coverage for Abortion Drugs

Peter Baklinsi reports at LifeSiteNews.com:

How can pro-lifers effectively reach out to women who are literally en route to abort their unborn babies? For the pro-life movement, that’s the million-dollar question.

Now one pro-life innovator, Joe Baker, founder and president of Save the Storks, believes he has found the answer: A mobile, fully-equipped, state-of-the-art medical center custom fitted into a Mercedes-Benz van, parked directly between the woman and the abortion clinic. . . .

Bakers’ vans sport an image of a large stork flying with a wrapped bundle in its beak, with the words "Save the Storks" written in large letters across the side of the van.

According to Baker, the image of the large bird carrying a bundled baby breaks down barriers, since for many people, the stork has a comforting and somewhat nostalgic connection to motherhood and pregnancy.

The interior of the vans are equipped with massage chairs, an examination table, a toilet for pregnancy testing, and an ultrasound machine. They are designed to create a comfortable and confidential space in which an abortion-minded woman will feel welcomed and safe.

"Save the Storks has found that a woman will more likely choose life if she finds support during and after her pregnancy, if she is provided with necessary resources, and if she can see her baby through ultrasound," according to LifeSiteNews.

"Calling the sonogram 'magic,' Baker said that when a woman having entered the Stork van sees her baby for the first time, 'there’s a bond that happens that is like nothing else'," LifeSiteNews reports. 

On Twitter I recently saw a question asking: "Why do abortion advocates hate ultrasound pictures?" 

"Because ultrasound pictures discriminate against death," I answered. Yes, the sonogram is "magic," but it is the magic of life revealed by information of science.

Abortion is anti-science and inhumane.

Bravo to Save the Storks for its creative, humane, and informed approach to ending the slaughter of "the least of these."

It was an honor to deliver the annual faculty in-service training at Southern Adventist University (SAU) a couple of weeks ago. I started with a presentation on making the "Case for Christianity Across the Curriculum" to explore how to incorporate verifiable Biblical truth and apologetics into the subject matter of every discipline on campus.

I followed up with "Speaking Truth to a Secular Age," giving concrete examples on how to "translate" reality-oriented Biblical principles from religious jargon into the language of today’s secularized world, and to do so without compromise. Most students at Christian colleges will go to work in the public sphere, and they need learn how to speak authentically and persuasively from a factual Biblical perspective into the challenges that beset their chosen fields of work.

My final presentation focused on what to expect from incoming students -- what worldview is most common among young people today? -- and how to "Give Students a Biblical Playbook."

The U.K. Telegraph reports:

A former bodyguard of Adolf Hitler, Rochus Misch, the last survivor from the Nazi leader's bunker at the end of the Second World War, has died in Berlin aged 96.

Related 
Eyewitness Recalls "Terrifying" Hitler Rally 
How Hitler and Nazis Tried to Steal Christmas
The Big Lie Lives. But Why?
Middle East: "Where Hitler Failed, We Must Succeed" 
Fascism Is Back
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?

The Boston Herald reports:

The state Supreme Judicial Court will begin hearing arguments this week in an atheist Acton couple’s quest to strike the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance their children say in the Acton-Boxboro Regional School District.

Related 
Home Depot Fires Man for Wearing "Under God" Pin: Video
Oregon Panel OKs Bill Requiring Daily Pledge of Allegiance in Schools
White House Correspondent Doesn't Stand for Pledge of Allegiance 
Double Bogey: NBC Edits Out "Under God" From Pledge
Democrat Activists Behind School Ban on Pledge of Allegiance 
The Declaration of Independence

On the Miley Cyrus fiasco, Aldous Huxley gives the broader picture: As the public sphere becomes increasingly controlled and authoritarian, the private sphere -- for example, sexual behavior -- becomes increasingly wild and choatic. From his preface to Brave New World:

"As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator
. . . will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate."

Today, of course, there are far more technological escapes via the internet, etc. And Huxley's words echo what sociologists like Peter Berger have also said -- that as the public sphere is increasingly structured and controlled by Big Government and Big Corporations, ordinary people compensate with the rejection of structure and restraints in the private sphere (see Berger's book The Homeless Mind).

In the words of John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, "Those concerned about the emerging police state in America . . . should be equally concerned about the pornification of America: They are two sides of the same coin."

Related
Rolled Model: Tennis Pro Harkleroad "Proud of My Body" 
Obama's HHS "Grooming" Your Children for Sex 
Memo to Conservatives: Accepting Homosex "Marriage" Opens Door to "Unlimited Statism"

Colin Flaherty writes at Frontpage.com:

Taleeb Starkes describes many examples of black on white crime in his book: The Uncivil War.

"Portland is one of the most liberal cities in the country," said Starkes. "They are quite proud of that.

"But this same liberalism is causing them to ignore, condone and excuse black on white crime and black mob violence.

"People who commit these horrific acts of violence are one thing. But people who condone them by ignoring them or refusing to tell the truth about them only encourage more them to occur.

"Those folks are sicker than the criminals."

Related
Black Mob on Rampage Fractures Cop's Skull: Officer "Went to the Assistance of a Woman Under Attack" 
Black Mobs Now Beating Jews in New York City