Joann - My dad used to say jokingly, "My mind is made up don't confuse me with the facts!" Well, it seems like that might be a good line for Robert to remember, but not as a joke.

In the text of the rest my email below I have italicized and "highlighted" inside quotation marks words and phrases that I have quoted from Robert's email to you appearing above. I am also saving a copy of this email to disc so to permanently save it for posterity. Who knows, it might come in handy someday if you or I should ever be questioned about "how we saw things way back in the first decade of this century." I know that you didn't write what appears below, but I don't think I've said anything with which you'd disagree based on all of our discussions regarding the topics I addressed therein. I know that you and I change our minds, make new decisions, and alter our beliefs based upon new information. Even if nobody ever asks us, it might be interesting for just ourselves in 15 to 20 years to see where our thinking has changed!

Oh sure, most of the forwarded emails were probably not favorable towards Democrats or an occasional Republican; and of course, certainly not favorable towards liberalism, socialism, Marxism, environmentalism, communism, Islamism [political system], terrorism, fascism, Islamo-naziism, anarchism, racism, atheism, feminism, or Obamaism, but so what? When someone with whom you've had a personal relationship for well over a decade has now self-admittedly made special effort during this previous decade through their "silence" camouflaged by "smiles and nods" to inform you of little or nothing of their beliefs, opinions, views and positions on any such things, for all you know they haven't formed any yet and would require more information before doing so. It seems that even secrets can produce non-secret consequences.

Once after a game 4 or 5 years ago of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" when Sam either won or came closer to winning than did Robert, he said basically that his childhood schooling in Canada didn't cover US history all that well and offered this as a reason for coming in with the lower score with respect to that particular game. Although he didn't expressly say it or make any specific reference, I would nonetheless think it reasonable to assume that his Canadian education back then was much like what the current education in the US public school system has now become - at least with respect to American history. Whether back then in Canada or currently here in the US what was and is for the most part ignored are the precepts of the Declaration of Independence [adopted in 1776], US Constitution [ratified in 1789], its Bill of Rights [ratified in 1791] and particularly, the limitations those founding documents [of 1789 and 1791] fixed upon the federal government of the several united States. Moreover, I think it's probable that neither of the foredescribed educations presented the idea, much less went into any depth, that, aside from the role played by the ancestral influence of the Magna Carta, all the forenamed founding documents sprung from the Old and New Testament and all together are the very root of American political conservatism. I think that in the back of your mind you may have been thinking that at least some of your forwarded emails had enough educational value and American perspective to help fill in the self-admitted void left in the Canadian version of US history that Robert received while growing up.

A few years ago Robert intimated [but maybe we took it the wrong way unless his slant as leaned the other way since then] that his then current views had a conservative slant in that he told us his adoptive parents in Canada were conservatives [or that he was raised by conservatives, but I can't remember exactly how he put it; but to me anyway, I would have taken either to mean the same thing]. In addition to that he had said that one [or more] college[s] he attended was [were] also conservative. As far as I know, Robert has maintained his dual citizenship and can work and live in either country, and for over the last decade, at least, he's chosen the USA to work, live, and now raise his family. [I think Robert is aware that the Canadian government, acting apparently within its lawful power has, or until recently had, the practice of filtering or downright censoring some forms of conservative thought, or at least talk, anyway. It had done this when it barred conservative radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger from broadcasting her show from any Canadian radio station. I think it was maybe about a year ago I that the Canadian government had finally lifted the ban on her show.]

Informal education in American politics ongoing?

All in all I think it was reasonable for us to have taken all the aforementioned to mean that he didn't think that he knew everything that was worth knowing forevermore from the point in time he had begun residing in the US. To put this simply, we thought that he wanted among other things that his informal education in American politics ongoing. This would also include remaining open to hearing and reading the newest thing that came along that would tend to either validate or discredit whatever he considered were differences between American conservatism and liberalism or Republicans and Democrats; and particularly with respect to those philosophies and parties, whether whatever any of them might be advocating in a given instance comported with this country's founding documents and their Judeo-Christian roots.

To this day Robert may have not yet fully realized that none of the fore-identified are static. Three of the four have been changing dramatically over the years. Conservatism, however, based on what I am aware, has changed little if any at all depending how one looks at it.  

Personally, I like preferably to think of my conservative view as being neither left nor right but rather squarely down the center of the Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, and the US Constitution, ratified in 1789, with its Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. I think that other true conservatives see much the same way as I.  To many others, my view might be taken as "right wing" or even "far right." My position has not changed essentially, except to say that my appreciation is growing deeper for the basic principles and rights endowed by our Creator that were to be secured in those documents. It's kinda funny how an unwavering position is supposedly seen by some as somehow moving supposedly more and more to the "extreme right" as each year passes. Oh of course, most liberals in positions of influence know better. They know that true conservative positions haven't budged. However, they seem pretty darn good at keeping that secret to themselves. They would have as many as possible believing quite the opposite.

The liberals of whom I speak, that is to say, liberal puppet masters, pied pipers and the like, seem to have a mastery of words, phrases, and delivery that can convince the unsuspecting that white is black, wet is dry, near is far, and up is down; and even more than that, they've also been somehow able to perpetuate this mastery of delusion upon generation after generation of the unsuspecting. They are in the political world very similar to what the creators of rides of illusion are in Disney World and Universal Studios. They know that in order to sustain this magical ambiance that they best not ever let any of the political ride-goers "see behind the curtain."  

True, solid conservatism and the liberty and freedom it represents must be kept under wraps otherwise its overwhelming appeal would be far too great to overcome by those who want to control every aspect our daily lives. The liberal puppet masters want this ideal to be seen as something on the move towards extreme positions far outside of normal, mainstream thinking. They and the spin from the pundits who support them are continually in one way or another promoting this pretended movement to the "extreme right" to their constituents, supporters, followers or "lemmings" [which in some cases might be more apropos than any other term].  In any case, these are people who've had a long history of believing anything they're told regardless of whether or not it defies what they've seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, or felt in their own pocketbooks. They want to "believe" irrespective of reality. The Democrat Party also seems to attract more than a fair share of agnostics, atheists, irreligious secular socialists or those for some reason or another put themselves at the center of their respective universe. When people don't believe in God or the texts that made Him known [Old Testiment], they can believe in anything and everything.  

Luckily, many of us have not been fooled. To us what has been happening has been as obvious as watching a ship leave port that looks smaller and smaller as it sails off over the horizon. We watch and listen liberals take positions that are incrementally further and further away from the principles put in words by Americans adopted back in 1776 and then put forth into law way back in 1789 and 1791. No matter how long we stare at those documents, we've detected no movement. Unlike what many progressives, liberals, Democrats, Obama followers, welfare rights advocates, alien rights advocates, gay rights advocates, etc. would preferrably have us believe, the inanimate words in those documents have not somehow become ambulatory where they started marching or sailing off to some extreme  far "right" vantage point on a distant horizon.  

Aside from the topic women's suffrage*, anyone would be hard-pressed to quote any phrase in the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, or any of the subsequent 17 Constitutional Amendments ratified [reasonable challenges have been made that the 16th Amendment was never lawfully ratified (source)] during the years from 1795 to 1992 that would single out or discriminate one group of American citizens where they would be denied or accorded any special "right" that would distinguish them from the whole population of citizenry of all the several States. This is to say there is no real person or special group of people under the jurisdiction of our federal government that has any special right not afforded or unavailable to others under this jurisdiction. However, this is not to say that politicians who pander to special interest groups don't pretend that there is Constitutional authority by which certain groups can be afforded by the federal government any special rights and privileges distinctly different from the general population. [* There is a movement underway to have our government make its officials pretend that they cannot distinguish difference between genders, but that's a whole other discussion.]

American reporters (most of whom were probably liberal according to Cronkite), who were supposedly covering the action from rooftops miles away, depicted to the American public that the Viet Cong offensive was a military disaster for the US. Public opinion perceptions changed accordingly. “Until Tet, a majority of Americans agreed with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson that failure was not an option.” - Arnaud de Borchgrave (Editor at large for The Washington Times and United Press International. He covered Tet as Newsweek's chief foreign correspondent and had seven tours in Vietnam between 1951 under the French and 1972, during the U.S. involvement.)

Liberals snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, received South Vietnam's unconditional surrender on April 30, 1975. In an interview in The Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1995, conducted by Stephen Young (who my brother Guy knows personally, which then led to me being introduced to him where at great length we discussed my dad’s legal matters), a former Asst. Dean at Harvard Law School, Dean of Hamline Univ. School of Law, and human-rights activist, Bui Tin made it clear the anti-war movement in the United States, which led to the collapse of political will in Washington, was "essential to our strategy." America lost the war, he concluded, "because of its democracy. Through dissent and protest, it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win." Democrat President Johnson realizing the powerful sway that Cronkite had over the years with the American public, along with reporters’ continual misrepresentation of success as failure, the growing anti-war movement, and along with other considerations, declared the war to be unwinnable. From that point forward, this diametrical change of the consensus of public opinion that was incessantly nurtured by defeatism promoted by the liberal, mainstream media, where failure had become a reasonable option in bringing the war to conclusion, remained on the table even through the Nixon administration. This included the time when there was yet another major military disaster for the communists, Hanoi's Easter offensive in March 1972. During that offensive, 70,000 North Vietnamese troops were wiped out by again primarily the South Vietnamese who did most of the fighting.  Leave it to liberals to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

In the first year or two that followed the hasty retreat of US forces from Vietnam and our reneging of our promise to South Vietnam, both resulting from the liberal Democrat majority of Congress, it's estimated that between 2 and 4 million were murdered in the “killing fields” of Southeast Asia.  These were far more fatalities than all those of all sides involved during the entire 3-decade length of the Vietnam War. (By the way, bullets were too precious to use for executions in these “killing fields.” Axes, knives and bamboo sticks were far more common. As for children, their murderers simply battered them against trees [source].) Of course these horrific consequences are never mentioned when liberals tell us how proud they were to have forced military retreat and stopped all US involvement in Souteast Asia and now promote the same hasty retreat from Iraq.

Shelby has reported to us numerous times in so many words that the "debate is over" concerning what some have claimed is mankind-caused global warming/climate change. Even though 5 of the 10 warmest of 127 years of recorded history were before WW2 (source) and 1934 (not 1998) was the warmest year on record (NASA), he says basically that mankind, particularly America, is now contributing greatly to this billions-of-year old pattern of undisputed variation and change. Of course he just continually happens to leave out in his reports that recent NASA satellite data and other sources tell us that 1998 was the warmest year in the last 10, and that despite appreciable increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the globe has been cooling since then and is down to its 30-year average temperature with this trend being expected to last at least another 10 years (source); and oh yeah, he also forgot to mention in his reports that this past July well over 31,000 scientists (9,000 of whom are Ph.Ds) signed a petition that, among other things, stated essentially that "there is no convincing scientific evidence" that mankind "is causing or will, in the foreseeable future ... disruption of the Earth's climate." (source) (But I'm sure it's for our own good!)   Basically, what Shelby advocates is that if Minnesotans and the rest of Americans were to greatly reduce their standard of living and pay much, much more in taxes and quadrupling energy related costs, we all might help slow down arrival at a time (otherwise perhaps a hundred years from now) when once again crops can be grown in Greenland and their dead buried next to others who had been interred 1500 years ago when the climate was much warmer than it is now and the ground was not permafrost. Of course, any chance at all at achieving this is contingent upon whether China and India want to stop their growth and jump on our backwards-headed bandwagon. If they don’t, well, at least we can “feel good” about our regression in our hearts while our bodies shiver in homes heated no higher than 55 degrees.]

With respect to all that which is said by others and including the likes of Cronkite and Shelby: "Trust, but verify." In case you don’t recall, this is the signature phrase of a conservative Republican and former President Ronald Reagan. It is obviously very applicable in many aspects of our personal lives and not just with our presidential foreign policy. 

Even though it's my guess that essentially none of us want to believe or much less admit, even in hindsight, that when we were young and took opposing positions to those of our parents we did so because most likely it was for no other reason than simply to be rebellious. At any rate, it's my guess that this was probably more often the case than not. Who knows, maybe what might be seen as this rebellious nature of progeny towards their progenitors is a Divine mechanism installed in our psyche meant to inherently keep mankind from straying too far off course and on an even keel so that it won't "drift off the deep end" one way or another.

It may be unbeknownst to him that it is commonly understood by many of us that we all are born with these liberal qualities when our first "thinking" was emotionally-based and seen as irrational; and, that it is only after we had begun to mature that we started becoming analytical and more rational. This critical thinking is of course necessary in order to read and understand such things as enumerated powers, unalienable rights, prescribed duty, and that nowhere in this artificial creation that we call the US Constitution is it stated that government is empowered with responsibility to "help" anyone, whether as an individual or groups of size less than the greater number of all Americans, to name a few. [Conservatives aren't born that way otherwise liberals in health care would be probably documenting it as a "birth defect!" (*smile* just kidding again.)] This might be one of the reasons why Republican President Reagan once said, "The scariest words you can ever hear are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.'"

It's apparent that Robert does not want any of his "beliefs" examined, challenged, scrutinized or debated in any way, or at least, not by or with you; or, in any case, with someone such as yourself who he knows that at least in some areas would have viewpoints that were diametrically different than his own. Also apparently, based upon his latest email, it seems that, aside from however he may confide in Amanda, he wants perhaps to be the only one who would examine, challenge or scrutinize his own beliefs - so, regardless of what side of an issue prevailed in such self-imposed scrutiny, maybe he figures that way he'll never lose an argument! [*smile* - just kidding some more] It does seem however that to him seeking agreement is far more important than seeking clarity.

Ironically, seeking clarity will often lead to more agreement than he may have thought possible. It might be a good bet that he thinks that your beliefs, opinions, and views are all rigid and static, perhaps, much like his own. Consequently, it'd be a waste of his time and pointless to go through the trouble of offering you any facts, evidence, or actual substance that would normally alter the direction of thinking of someone he thought would be more reasonable. Moreover, if he did nonetheless make such attempt of presenting actual evidence [and not just expressing personal feelings] that could reasonably lead someone to a different conclusion, it seems he's of the opinion that doing such with you would likely be received as an irritant leading to less than "amicable" relation. Hopefully, the term "amicable" was nothing more than a poor choice of words on his part. I know that you all the time you've ever talked about your son Robert, whether just about him or including this more present day that includes his wife Amanda or currently with the expansion of his family that now also includes their infant and your granddaughter Olivia, with respect to no time frame of all the time Robert has reintroduced himself into your life have you ever come across to me as someone who thought she had nothing more than a friendly, peaceable, and cordial relationship; that is to say, a relationship not denoting great warmth of affection.

If I remember right, I think there was a neurotic emperor once upon a time who had regally paraded naked through his city streets who valued agreement of others with his personal perception over and above common sense. This particular emperor proceeded under the illusion that anyone who didn't agree with his pretentious belief that he was wearing extraordinarily magnificent new clothes was either stupid or incompetent. Despite second doubts, it was his hope that all the parade watchers would know beforehand that they'd be classified as such by the emperor himself so they then would not vocalize publicly any form of argument which supported their different point of view. By the end of the parade, the emperor realized that all the onlookers saw him as naked wearing not a stitch of clothing but could not get himself to admit to it. He kept on to the very end fooling only himself.

In fairness, many of us and including myself do not always welcome hearing opposition to the beliefs we hold, whether publicly or privately. Speaking for myself, at times I know that I simply believe them to be true and move on and don't want to take the time to repetitively reevaluate them except at such times our personal conversations demand it or if my son Sam is making the inquiry or challenge. However, let's not confuse faith, beliefs, opinions and views as all being one in the same. Each is different. We often interchange these words in our speaking or writing. The intensity, veracity, or levels of confidence in their meanings that we want to infer are relative to the topic that is being addressed or the context in which they are being used.

"Faith" is at the top of the list. It is belief without doubt as in our Christian faith. It rests neither on logical proof nor material evidence. In its purist sense it is spiritual understanding that God is the only true source of all things seen and unseen and factored not by probability or possibility.

"Beliefs" are not inherently without doubt. Nonetheless they are deep-seated and are generally held regardless of whether we suspicion that they can be proven true or false. Some of our human beliefs can arise involuntarily out of our experience such as spontaneously out of habit - not too different than those of animals [such as a dog that believes there will be food in its dish every day]. We believe things to be true because they have always been our experience although our beliefs in those things can begin to respectively wane or even eventually disappear if expectations based upon those previous experiences are not always met. When we believe anything, we partly doubt it, and when we doubt anything, we partly believe it. [source]

Comparatively, "opinions" are generally malleable, temporal, provisional and more easily subject to change. They can seem true or probable but are inherently open for dispute and not nearly as unshakeable as beliefs.

"Views" are something that are seen from a particular vantage point of a person or persons that can be under constant change in that life itself is change and something that is not static. The identical thing can be seen or viewed quite differently and thus be seen as very different things when in fact it is one thing that is unchanged. The story of "The Blind Men and the Elephant" describes different viewpoints [of blind men, no less] of the same thing quite well.

Your "worldview" of what you saw in Italy that you then relayed to Robert was possibly way too harsh. Maybe police standing on corners with their fingers on the triggers of fully automatic machine guns aren't so bad after all; and maybe, becoming more "European" and having just those same kind of police is what we needed in St. Paul during the National Republican Convention to have quelled the far left protesters, eh?

Your "worldview" of what you saw when in Nagales, Mexico and related to Robert may have also been greatly exaggerated. Even had I not been there along with you, your safety and security of the possessions you were carrying there that day and night would have been no different than had you been walking down the downtown streets of St. Paul.

Your "worldview" of what you and I had seen in our trips to the Bahamas must have also been very distorted. The predominantly Black Bahamian population [85% of African decent] probably had nothing or little to do with most everything that we had seen being kept seemingly so neat, clean and tidy. This of course doesn't even address how well not only adults were dressed but also their children. But not only were we apparently badly mistaken about what we thought to be obvious pride in their homes, workplaces, and personal appearance, but also in their speech. You and I must have had a few screws loose in our ears to have mistakenly thought that they spoke, aside from an accent, English more clearly than a lot of Americans regardless of their ethnicity or race.

It seems that to Robert, the coup de grâce of your perverted "worldview" [and mine for that matter] could perhaps be displayed no better than by the email you forwarded originating from my friend of long ago, Tom Prease. His email not only manifests patriotism for the USA but also faith that it is only through Jesus Christ that anyone can be with the Father in the hereafter. One could hardly pick two better topics that would irk or in some case, infuriate, the language police of politically correct speech, the Blame America First crowd, and of course, the "I'm Okay - You're Okay - Let's Everybody Just Get Along Bunch", that is to say: 57% of Evangelicals Who Believe There Are Other Ways To God Than Through Jesus Christ* - and in just one email no less! [* 70% of Americans with a religious affiliation share this same view.]

Yes Joann, how little did you realize that after you reading Tom Prease's email, which was apparently validated as an original authored by Prease personally by my cousin Tom G. [who for all practical purposes has always been my oldest brother] and then again by me, in that I had forwarded it to you, that you of all people would have, in an apparent lapse of better judgment, mustered the audacity to forward this personal account of observation and commentary by someone who, in extended visits, had traveled the region only three [3] times! And for "Pete’s sake," by now you should have learned from Robert and realized that a person of a minority race, ethnicity and religion, such as was the case with Tom Prease while he was in North Africa visiting Egypt and including his travels to the Middle East, should be ignored and dismissed with prejudice. [Or did I get that wrong? Is it rather only white, heterosexual, Christian, American males who are to be ignored and dismissed with prejudice regardless of where they are on the planet? Tom P. used to have a quippy remark that I’ve never forgotten, "Everybody’s gotta be someplace." Sorry to say, that was then and this is now. Now it seems, at least according to what Robert implies, there is no "place" left anywhere on this planet for anyone such as Tom Prease anymore.]

Something for you to remember in the future

With the aforementioned in mind, it sure seems that you should have realized that any conservative commentary, much less that originating from personal observations, should only be shared with your or my offspring, much less other family, if you could give them the choice of whether or not they even dare view it or any part thereof. And, even then if they dared to take you up on it you should have only allowed for it to be presented if certain precautions were first taken, such as them having, in hand, a channel changer with fully charged batteries. Oops, sorry, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me back up.

• something that favors the USA over any other country,
• something that favors Christianity over any other religion,
• something that favors Judaeo-Christian ethic over any other,
• something that favors personal accountability and responsibility over placing such on other people or things,
• something that favors that all of us, each as independent individuals, and not anyone else, are respectively and solely responsible for generating whatever may be our own personal feelings and emotions, such as "happiness," "sadness," "feeling offended," "feeling hated," "mad," or "angry," and other than physiological conditions, these feelings and emotions result directly from each of our personal expectations being met, not met, or surprised,  
• something that favors our country's founding fathers' thinking over more current thought,
• something that favors the USA having borders over it being borderless,
• something that favors legal immigration over illegal immigration,
• something that favors the USA being a superpower with its navy and military power not playing second-fiddle or being weaker than one or more friend or foe country or countries around the world,
• something that favors strong family bond and self-reliance over that with a village or community,
• something that favors prioritizing level of importance with God first, self and family second and government third as opposed to government first, self and family second and God third, 
• something that favors our Constitutional, representative republic over any other form of government,
• something that favors the USA over the UN,
• something that favors capitalism over socialism,
• something that favors capitalism over communism,
• something that favors capitalism over Marxism,
• something that favors our government being able to distinguish gender difference between men and women,
• something that favors human life whether in or out of the womb,
• something that favors human life in the womb as being exactly that and not the equivalent of snot that is expelled from the body,
• something that favors human life over the environment, 
• something that favors the idea that Jesus Christ was not a liberal,
• something that favors the idea that Jesus Christ was not a communist,
• something that favors the idea that Jesus Christ was not a community organizer just as was Barack Hussein Obama, and of course
• something that favors the idea that President Bush is not the devil incarnate; and

2) it should, the best you can, be first watered-down and edited; then

3) the final and only text be sent to some obscure local cable channel TV station and all rough drafts that remain be destroyed; then

4) suggest to the station's producer that because do not want yourself or the station to be held liable in any way for its contents, potential viewers should first be informed expressly of the caveat heading you had given it, stating, "Far rightwing ultra-conservative viewpoint not suitable for impressionable children or young adults 17 years old or younger neither endorsed nor representative of this channel's ownership or the source that relayed this controversial topic for airing"; then urge that  

5) it be televised only after midnight, and 

6) be read aloud on camera with the snideness and facial expressions of and by some Keith Olbermann wannabe. [Joann, despite all your precautions, be prepared nevertheless to become the "Worse Person In the World!"]

Now don’t get me wrong, of course I’m sure that Robert respects that you had and still have a "right to communicate what you thought was right." I just think though that the next time you want to communicate it, if you would just follow the simple guidelines that I laid out and enumerated in the paragraph above, you would discover that your communication would probably be received with less complaints. I’m sure that you’d agree that it’s important to always be aware of your audience. It’s very important to you and all those who wish to communicate with a liberal, open-minded audience that their message falls within the parameters of acceptability recognized at least by the more fair-minded of the Left wing in American politics.

If you are ever in doubt, however, whether something falls within those parameters, remember this ‘rule of thumb": Today’s "liberals" …[Well okay, "liberal" or "liberalism" has lately been fast becoming a pejorative. This I think is due largely to the American public seeing and hearing sometimes instantly in the media liberals in action (such as by the new, predominantly liberal, Democrat majority Congress that now has the lowest approval rating in American history). Seeing and hearing are not the only things that have led to this record-setting dim view of American liberalism. Americans are now feeling it deeply – in their daily lives and in their pocket books. Everyday, they are experiencing the results of those liberals’ actions from such things as their:

1. squeeze on personal liberty and freedom;
2. limiting political speech, removal of rights with property ownership;
3. unquenchable thirst for more and more tax dollars to fund more and more projects and programs of questionable Constitutionality;
4. plan for American taxpayers to pay for welfare throughout different parts of the world,
5. relentless push to remove US borders and open the floodgates that would, among other things, pour millions more of the unskilled and uneducated into a socialist system that in turn would devastate American taxpayers who are already overburdened with funding it who would then be expected to cover costs of all those additional people who’d receive great benefit although never having paid in or having little or no promise of ever paying anything in much less anything that would be substantial,
6. refusal to allow Americans to enjoy their own energy resources;
7. obstruction of the free market to provide inexpensive energy for home energy, transportation, business; and industry; and in so doing,
8. needlessly driving up energy costs leading to doubling, tripling or more the cost of fuel, making it, among other things, a "luxury" to fill up a car’s gas tank or heat a home above 60 degrees; and,
9. prohibiting the free exercise their religion in all areas of federal jurisdiction if the religion happens to be Christianity,

to name a few. So instead, I’ll use a newer term with which the public hasn’t yet come to fully appreciate to be just another name to describe pretty much the same political group:] Today’s "progressives" believe absolutely in vibrant free speech and expression – as long as it conforms to their current beliefs, opinions, views, and spin regardless of whether or not any such holding has any basis in fact or substance with respect to whatever may be in question.

Something for you to remember in the past ["those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it"]

"It is propaganda, often leans towards war-mongering, borders on hate speech, and is very reminiscent of tactics used by the Nazis against the Jews and the early Americans against the African slaves and the indigenous native peoples." In Robert’s reminiscences, what seems to escape him is how in the 1930s academia such as that of Columbia and Harvard universities who thought highly of Hitler and Nazi Germany and tried to forge friendly relations with Nazi-controlled German universities [source, source]. This was despite during that time, it was widely reported that German Jews were segregated in schools, beaten in the streets, purged from universities and their businesses boycotted. The Nazis were the first "green" party. They created nature preserves, championed sustainable forestry, curbed air pollution, and designed the autobahn highway network as a way of bringing Germans closer to nature [source]. They were also the first to commence an anti-tobacco campaign and ban smoking in public places. Hitler and the Nazi Party promised "hope" and "change" [words always known to excite liberals] that attracted and gained overwhelming support of many German youth, students, lawyers, doctors, teachers, self-employed craftsmen and small businessmen [source]. I would have thought that Robert, in achieving his Master’s degree in communications and thus being an academic himself, would have studied, at least to some extent, the persuasiveness of the rhetoric used by Nazis on the German populous of the 1930s and why, regardless of it’s violent nature when faced with those who did not agree with its political ideology, it attracted the great liberal minds at Columbia and Harvard. And, of course, I would have also thought that perhaps he would have thought twice before using something so praised by academia that turned out so terribly wrong. But hey, maybe he just thought that it sounded good and that you wouldn’t know any better!

As far as "propaganda" leaning towards "war-mongering" that bordered on "hate-speech" with respect to "African slaves" in the US 150 years ago, well, they were generally considered valuable property and not something against whom to go to war or hate. For that matter, "blacks themselves held slaves throughout the war between the States. In 1860 some 3,000 blacks owned nearly 20,000 black slaves. In South Carolina alone, black slaveholders owned more than 10,000 blacks" [source]. Obviously, for them anyway, race or ethnicity was probably not a big issue. If they had carried ill-feelings amongst themselves from the Continent of Africa where one group or tribe captured those of another to then be sold to slave merchants for transport to America, then of course one could appreciate hate-speech directed between blacks who themselves, families or ancestors committed the initial captures and those who themselves, families or ancestors had been the captives.

With respect to the "indigenous native peoples," "war-mongering" and "hate-speech" was nothing new to them. There is a long history of such throughout the Americas well before 1492 when Christopher Columbus had traveled no farther than the West Indies. "Indigenous native peoples" in both North and South America were waring people for numerous centuries prior the the coming of Europeans to these continents. I would seriously doubt that they whispered "sweet nothings" in the face of an oncoming warrior before they attempted to crack his head wide open with an axe. 

Another method of abortion during late-term is labor-induced abortion. Statistics on this method in the US are not well-kept or at least not easily accessible for me. It is however estimated that their numbers are significantly much higher than the average of 5000 US partial birth abortions per year. In this labor-induced method the doctor injects a drug into the cervix that induces premature labor and it is anticipated that the baby will die during this birth process or soon afterwards. [As a father of his daughter Olivia who is less than a month old, Robert might now better be able to appreciate this. My daughter Sarah was a "preemie" as they are called. Her mother and I were both expecting our baby would go full-term before birth. This turned out not to be the case. Even though no drug was given to induce premature labor, nonetheless she went into it anyway. (As many as 11% of all mothers give birth prematurely.) The nurses in Children's Hospital told my wife and me that our daughter recognized my voice whenever I was talking while entering the intensive care unit to see her. They could see on electronic monitors her responding significantly to my voice compared to no special response to other male voices in the unit. After over 2 weeks in intensive neonatal care the doctors said they thought our daughter looked to be "out of the woods" and was going to make it. However, shortly after them saying that she then suddenly she took a turn for the worse - a day later Sarah died in my arms.]

However, not all these abortion procedures achieve the intended result - babies don't always die while still in their mothers. Barack Hussein Obama favors a "solution" to that. It's not a big deal. Simply "shelve"* these living babies that survived botched abortions and let them die on their own whether "in the department's soiled utility room next to dirty linens, bloody and biohazardous waste, and a urinal" or in a "Comfort Room" that is "prettily wallpapered ... complete with a First Foto machine, baptismal gowns, a footprinter and baby bracelets [keepsakes to parents of their aborted babies]" and has "a nice wooden rocker ... to rock live aborted babies to death" [source, source].

Heaven forbid that their mothers be "punished with a baby" [quoting Barack Obama (video source) speaking about this possibility with respect to his own daughters]. What the heck, these infants are too young and fragile to get up and find an IV, oxygen mask, open the door of a perinatal incubator, or much less go get a drink of water or find something in the frig that could sustain their life - so there you have it, nothing to worry about. Obama was being way too modest when he said recently that this subject "was above my paygrade." [video source]