This Man has Integrity

And one of the signs of a failing nation is that those with such integrity are no longer in the race.

Santorum suspends campaign

FILE – In this April 3, 2012 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum gets a hug from his wife Karen in Cranberry, Pa. Santorum is suspending his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, clearing a path for Mitt Romney to become the nominee. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Tuesday he is suspending his campaign.

He made the announcement at the Gettysburg Hotel in Gettysburg, Pa., talking about his young daughter’s illness and reflecting on the campaign.

His 3-year-old daughter Bella was taken to a Virginia hospital Friday with pneumonia. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, left the campaign trail until this afternoon. The child has a life-threatening genetic disorder known as Trisomy 18.

“She’s a fighter,” said Santorum, standing beside his wife and children. “She’s doing exceptionally well.”

Santorum also faces an uphill battle against front-runner Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Five states, including Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania, hold primaries April 24.

Romney is spending $2.9 million in TV ads in Pennsylvania. Romney is far ahead of Santorum in the race for delegates to the Republican National Convention and is the party’s likely nominee.

Romney said after Santorum concluded his speech at about 2:45 p.m: “Sen. Santorum is an able and worthy competitor, and I congratulate him on the campaign he ran. He has proven himself to be an important voice in our party and in the nation. We both recognize that what is most important is putting the failures of the last three years behind us and setting America back on the path to prosperity.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is still in the GOP race with Texas Rep. Ron Paul, also praised Santorum for his campaign.

“Rick has waged a remarkable campaign,” he said. ‘His success is a testament to his tenacity and the power of conservative principles.”

Gingrich also reiterated he is commitment to stay in the race to the party’s nominating convention in August in Tampa.

“I humbly ask Sen. Santorum’s supporters to visit Newt.org to review my conservative record and join us as we bring these values to Tampa,” he added. “We know well that only a conservative can protect life, defend the Constitution, restore jobs and growth and return to a balanced budget.”

Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said: “Congratulations to Sen. Santorum on running such a spirited campaign. Dr. Paul is now the last – and real – conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. We plan to continue running hard, secure delegates, and press the fight for limited, constitutional government in Tampa.”

9 April, 2012

I Can't Tolerate Your Intolerance!

Original post and video here:

“‘Celebrate diversity’ — the great bumper sticker — actually means ‘celebrate stultifying homogeneity,’” Canadian best-selling author and columnist Mark Steyn told The Daily Caller.

In an exclusive interview this week with TheDC’s Ginni Thomas, Steyn railed against liberal “diversity”-speak and the lack of tolerance for traditional values.

“As you know, if you go to the average American newsroom you can have diversity of race, diversity of gender, diversity of orientation — everything except the only diversity that matters, which is diversity of thought,” he said. “And the left does not want to celebrate diversity of thought. They rage against so-called intolerance, yet they themselves are stupefyingly intolerant.”

“They are conformity enforcers,” he explained,” but they’ve co-opted all the light, fluffy, happy, smiley-faced buzzwords.”

“That’s the classic trick taught to us by Orwell explicitly in ’1984.’ People of a conservative disposition read that book and think he’s warning of a dystopian future. People of the left read it and use it as a manual.”

The rest of Mark Steyn’s interview will be online Monday morning, only at The Daily Caller.

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31 March, 2012

"The Intolerance of Tolerance" by D. A. Carson. Review by Tim Challies

Original Review Here

The Intolerance of Tolerance

Tim Challies
02/28/12

The Intolerance of Tolerance Several times in the past decade D.A.Carson has been asked to give a public lecture at one university or another. Three times he has taken the opportunity to speak on the subject of tolerance, or intolerance, as the case may be. Those lectures proved the foundation of what would become his cleverly-titled new book, The Intolerance of Tolerance.

Here’s the thing: In a society obsessed with tolerance, we are actually not tolerant at all. It’s all a big lie, a big fiction, and we’re all playing along. In order to claim tolerancewe’ve had to rewrite the definition of the term and in so doing we’ve put ourselves on dangerous ground. Tolerance has become part of the Western “plausability structure”—a stance that is assumed and is not to be questioned. We are to be tolerant at all times. Well, almost all times, that is.

Carson begins by showing that tolerance presupposes disagreement. That’s the beauty of being tolerant—one person expresses disagreement with another but still tolerates him, accepting that differing views exists even while holding fast to his own. He puts up with another person even though they do not believe the same thing. But over time there has been a subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle shift in the word’s meaning. Today’s version of tolerance actually accepts all differing views. We’ve gone from accepting the existence of other views to believing that we need to accept all differing views. This brings us into the natural outworking of postmodernism, a philosophy that denies the singular nature of truth.

Things get trickier still when we see that tolerance is not considered merely a virtue today, but the cardinal virtue, the virtue above all others. “Intolerance is no longer a refusal to allow contrary opinions to say their piece in public, but must be understood to be any questioning or contradicting the view that all opinions are equal in value, that all worldviews have equal worth, that all stances are equally valid. To question such postmodern axioms is by definition intolerant.” To quote Carson, “Oh dear.”

Tolerance rules today with one important caveat. There can be no tolerance for people who do not agree with the contemporary usage of the term. People like Christians, for example. Those who hold to the old meaning, that I will tolerate you even though I believe that you are wrong, sinful even—there can be no tolerance for people like that. Hence this new tolerance is inherently intolerant.

The Intolerance of Tolerance explains this strange new definition, traces its development, shows how it is particularly opposed to Christianity, and discusses what we stand to lose if this intolerant new tolerance continues to reign in society. Carson closes by suggesting ten ways ahead—ten suggestions that each of us can adopt if we wish to combat the new tolerance.

This is not just a book for smart people, but you’ll find it helps. If you’re really smart and well-read you can probably read it once with pretty good comprehension. If you’re like me, you’ll need at least two readings and even then be scratching your head at times. It’s not that it’s exceedingly dense or difficult, but that it deals with categories that are unfamiliar. At least that was my experience. But I’m glad I read it as it helped me crystalize exactly what I’ve seen going on all around me. It’s given me the parameters I need to ensure that I don’t inadvertently lose the better meaning of tolerance and it has given me fair warning of the consequences should I do so.

It is available at Westminster Books ($15.60) or Amazon ($16.03 hardcover, $9.99 Kindle).