“Do you fear the force of the wind,

The slash of the rain?

Go face them and fight them,

Be savage again.

Go hungry and cold like the wolf,

Go wade like the crane.

The palms of your hands will thicken,

The skin of your forehead tan –

You’ll be ragged and swarthy and weary

But – you’ll walk like a man.”

- Hamlin Garland

Back in Action

I can explain. You all probably thought I abandoned this blog after I've been gone for the past two weeks, but that's not like me. I could just tell you that I was on vacation, but that's too easy an out. So I'll explain... I was in the desert shooting guns. No really, here's proof.

I spent about a week with family and friends out in the scorching, searing desert of Nevada at a training facility called Front Sight. It's a self-proclaimed bastion of Second Amendment enforcement in the United States. Their goal is to provide the highest level of arms training to citizens, law enforcement, and soldiers while at the same time raising the level of gun education and awareness among users. They have identified a serious problem in the United States - the lack of gun education among users. We all like to wave our Second Amendment right around in the face of the world, but the reality is that we have neglected the responsibility that comes with that right. People do a lot of stupid things with guns in their hands. Sure, the media can be gun-phobic and blow the problem out of proportion, but what other choice do we give them when gun users are continually injuring themselves or innocent people by simple user error.

Front Sight's commitment to preserving the Second Amendment through training responsible, educated gun users was impressive to say the least. When I arrived I had no idea how to hold, load, or shoot a Glock 9mm, but after several days I was clearing jams, drawing from a holster, and shooting accurately from distance. Their training is nothing short of phenomenal, better than the military and police force I must say, just by hearing all the personal stories from cops and soldiers who frothed over the level of training they received at Front Sight. Check them out at FrontSight.com.

Oh, and the other reason I disappeared: Las Vegas. By coincidence, sheer luck you might even say, it was only 45 minutes away. Okay, maybe we planned it that way.

Book Recommendation

Melanie Phillip's new book The World Turned Upside Down is a provocative, hard-hitting look into the major ideological battlefields dividing America and the Western World. As a journalist first and foremost, Phillips accomplishes what few great journalists can - seeing through the swamp of emotional and sensational news to the cold, hard facts of the issues. She debunks today's popular myths and misconceptions with clear, poignant writing and research. Her book is so well documented it doubles as a handbook for key issues like global warming, the war on terror, and the secular attacks on Western religion. The World Turned Upside Down reveals the destructive ideologies eating away at religion, morality, and truth - the core of American greatness. Phillips, a British journalist, combats American popular culture in a way that few writers can, as an outsider looking in, not someone caught in the day-to-day, tit-for-tat battles Americans engage in.

At its core, The World Turned Upside Down recognizes the backwards state of politics and culture in the West due to the loss of religion and the dependance of man on his own reason. Modern society tells us that faith and reason are inseparable, but Phillips proves the opposite. Christianity and the Bible gave us our foundations for knowledge, progress, and order, she argues. Without that foundation, the world as we once knew it is eroding in front of our eyes. Above economic debt, foreign threats, and faulty science, the abandonment of religion poses the greatest threat to the West, she says, opening us up for attacks on all sides, from radical Islam to secular humanism. The World Turned Upside Down is a cautionary tale; if we continue down this spiraling path, the world will truly be standing on its head.

Enough with the "Hope"

CNN reported today that we have had more reported terrorist attempts on American soil last year than in all the years combined from 2002 to 2009. Only weeks after the failed car bombing of New York's Times Square, the Department of Homeland Security says "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period."

This frightening assessment is contained in an unclassified DHS intelligence memo prepared for various law enforcement groups, which says terror groups are expected to try attacks inside the United States with "increased frequency."

To put it bluntly: America has become more dangerous and vulnerable over the past 17 months, rather than safer and stronger. President Obama capitalized on the anti-Bush rhetoric during the election, but what evidence does he have to offer that he has improved homeland security so far.

CNN's story comes on the heels of Pres. Obama debuting his new national security strategy based on diplomacy rather than war. To quote the White House report, "Our long-term security will not come from our ability to instill fear in other peoples but through our capacity to speak to their hopes." So instead of being protector and enforcer, the United States will be the world's motivational coach. Enough with the "hope." The hope of radical Islamics is to kill the infidels. The hope of Iran is to destroy Israel. This is the type of naive, backwards, idealistic policy that thinks we can keep everyone safe by making everyone happy. It's absurd, and don't be shocked if the number of terrorist attacks continue to rise in the United States.

Problems Ahead

How about a NY Times story that starts like this:
"Across Western Europe, the 'lifestyle superpower,' the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II."

Finally, a breath of fresh air for capitalists and a strong dose of reality for European socialists. For years, Europeans have boasted of their milk and honey welfare programs with early retirements and generous pensions. But with aging populations and rising budget deficits, it looks like their social welfare programs are finally catching up to them economically. While the rest of the financial world holds their breath, Europe is perched precariously on the cliff of economic disaster and might fall if they don't make changes soon. Read all the numbers and the rest of the NY Times story here.

From Europe to America, this story segues perfectly into a separate piece written by Arthur Brooks about the ongoing tug-of-war between free enterprise and government control in American culture. Read that story here.

Radical Islam

We played the audio from this video on Morning In America last week and I can't help forget the bone chilling answer the Muslim student gives. This video shows a side of radical Islam that the world isn't prepared for - an English speaking, female student who supports Hamas and the killing of the Jewish people. How many more wake up calls do we need?

Decline in Morality

A new Gallup poll describes what many of us have been predicting for a long time - a steady decline in morality in America. 45% of those surveyed described morality in the U.S. as "poor" and only 15% could call it "excellent or good." The survey also said that 76% believe morality is getting worse, while only 14% said it was improving.

CNN's Jack Cafferty reported on the poll and asked the audience, "So what's wrong with us?"

I don't know what's more sad, reading the actual poll numbers, or hearing commentators wonder why morality is declining. Predictably, they will point to a wide variety of issues: failing education systems, breakdowns in the family, dishonesty in business, and drug and alcohol abuse. Yet, these feel good, psychology 101 answers all skirt the real issue, the loss of religion in America.

Since the beginning of Western thinking, religion and morality were inextricably interwined. From Plato to Aquinas, philosophers have wrestled with the relationship between the two. In a discussion of morality, to ignore religion is to ignore the verb of a sentence.

Is it mere coincidence that morality has slipped hand in hand with church attendence? According to a separate Gallup poll, only 41.6% of Americans reported that they attended church at least once a week or almost every week in 2009 (around 123 million Americans). A sad, but telling statistic for where America's morality lies.

By comparison, movie theater attendence jumped nearly 16% in 2009 according to the NY Times. If you want to see where America's priorities lie, look at the culture. Between sports, music, and television, religion has taken a backseat to entertainment. One can only hope that Americans will reconnect the dots between morality and religion. For as a scholar once said (and this quote is usally incorrectly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville), "America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."

Final Exams

I apologize for the lack of posts this week. I'm in the middle of final exams and the Red Bulls are counting up and the hours of sleep are counting down. Anyways, only one more exam to go and I am free man. I sure am going to miss spending all day studying in the library and then all-night studying at IHOP. Bear with me and I'll be back soon with some substantive posts on something other than my physics test tomorrow.

Tragedy on Campus Part 2

Sitting in class yesterday, I almost fell out of my chair when I read that my post on college violence had been posted on NRO's Corner and the FRC blog. I'll admit that it was hard for me to pay attention for the rest of that class. I hope I offered some valuable personal insight into my college experience, and apparently, I even stirred up some controversy along the way.

A reader emailed a rebuttal to my post to NRO, which they published, followed by another reader's response to that. The whole conversation happened HERE. I know my reply won't make it back to NRO, but I'd like to address the first rebuttal of my argument here for all you kind souls who came back to my blog. The respondent said the following about my post:

The total number of students enrolled in US colleges and universities is about 15 million (that's only undergrads, http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html); 325 of those are at Patrick Henry College. If the number of college deaths at Patrick Henry College exactly equaled the national average, it would be 0.02 per 5 years (based on the 857 number your PHC student refers to), or one every 50 years. I'm fine with private colleges setting whatever rules they want for their students, but if this is the best defense he can come up with for the rules imposed by Patrick Henry College, which include martial-law features like a curfew, his case is pretty weak.

First, I admitted candidly in my post that the statistics do not line up on a purely mathematical basis. Patrick Henry College has 300+ students; UVA has closer to 30,000. The purpose of the post was to offer insight from my personal experience into the value systems of Patrick Henry College and why we are different from a majority of college campuses. I chose deaths as the statistic of comparison because that was the topic of the UVA news story, unfortunately. I might add that STDs and drugs are almost nonexistent at PHC and that only a handful of students are sexually active -- a very real, healthy difference that you won't find statistics on.

Second, the college's curfew is anything but martial-law. In fact, I live off campus. There are no curfew restrictions on me, but if I plan on visiting campus at 3 am I can expect the doors to be locked and a security guard to let me in. Those in their junior year or 21-years and older are not subject to curfew either. They can come and go as they please, but they aren't allowed into dorms of the opposite sex after curfew hours.

Despite what the Harvard student insuates, the rules at PHC are not Draconian. They are calculated to protect the student body and be flexible enough to look out for their best interests. The larger point here is not the rules-based society but the Christian culture. The ethos at PHC respects life, property, and morals and as a collective we hold each other to a higher Biblical standard. If you want to see real, breathing statistics come visit the school. I promise you will notice a difference.

Tragedy on College Campuses

In less than two weeks from today I will graduate from Patrick Henry College and finish four years of my undergraduate. Looking back, I can remember a lot of the typical college experiences– late night studying, spring break road trips, and nights out with your friends. I’m fortunate to say that I was never involved or associated in one particular college trend in all of my four years – violence or murder.

Having personally known one of the girls shot at Virginia Tech on April 16^th, 2007, my heart breaks every time I hear of college-related violence and the pointless death of innocent students.

Today, my heart goes out to the family of Yeardley Love, a 22-year-old lacrosse player and student at the University of Virginia, murdered yesterday by her on-and-off 22-year-old boyfriend.

The thought of such a tragedy makes me wonder why my experience at college has been so different from a majority of the campuses across America. In four years, my school has not had a single murder, suicide, or violent crime.

Considering that the USA Today calculated 857 college student deaths from 2000 to 2005, how does one school manage to escape unscathed? It’s certainly not chance or luck. For Patrick Henry College, it’s in our Christian culture.

Critics mock us for our strict rules – like no dancing or drinking on campus, no members of the opposite sex permitted in your dorm room, nightly curfew hours – and the lack of a social atmosphere it creates. We have been the subject of books (God’s Harvard), television shows, op-eds, and countless blogs who rant against our brand of overbearing right-wing Christianity that poisons society’s freedom.

Yet, what is the cost of students being able to “express” themselves? Is that freedom worth the cost of drunk driving deaths, drug related violence, and love affairs turned fatal?

I’m certainly not saying that Christians are not capable of committing the same, if not worse crimes. But the culture of Christianity and the rules we hold ourselves to at Patrick Henry lay substantial roadblocks to violent or illegal behavior.

Granted, our entire school population would be one or two classes at UVA, but the fact remains that Patrick Henry College has it’s own recipe for student safety that is active and working. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve broken the college’s rules, but as I look back, I realize that in many ways those same laws saved me from myself.

Non-Christians who are reading this right now are sure to be shaking their heads at me. How can you use one unfortunate crime to wave your rules over our heads and try to enforce your agenda on us? I understand that many people are turned off by Christianity and its giant “rulebook.” But as the number of college related attacks and crimes rise, and as more campuses are scarred with senseless deaths, I hope universities will consider the facts before them and realize that there is a way to prevent future heartbreaks – commit to enforcing tough, moral laws and foster a community of students who want to uphold those laws.