Debra's Bio

Throughout the colonial period, many groups headed for the colonies to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. Among them were Quakers and Roman Catholics from England, Huguenots from France, Moravians from Germany, and Jews throughout Europe. True, early settlers endured persecution, exile, calamities at sea, near-mutiny, harsh climate, starvation, illness, and grueling work. Nevertheless, through steady endurance and God’s grace, settlers lived well albeit without extremes of wealth or poverty. Historically, New England colonies freely thanked God for their blessings. In the late 1600s, their religious journeys were memorialized by John Bunyan in the timeless allegory called Pilgrim’s Progress. This extraordinary work was often the only other book besides the Bible that an American pioneer family owned and read.

It was in 1941 that Congress by joint resolution approved the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, a national public holiday. Disturbingly, in 1962 and 1963, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court established that God and His Word were no longer relevant—and even dangerous. A National Day of Prayer and Bible Week since have become targets of disdain. It is fair to note that, once again, persecution has reared its ugly head against believers.

Secularism, welfare gone wild, a spirit of entitlement, and collaborative consciousness increasingly quell rugged individualism and personal responsibility. As a nation, we are fast becoming complacent, obese, and decidedly godless and thankless. Not only do Americans refuse to bow their knees to the one true Lord; they outlaw its practice.

We’ve heard the stories: Now, the ACLU curtails third-grade programs that might, just might mention God; and it has unleashed prayer police lest students voluntarily pray at high school functions or graduation ceremonies. While alleged civil liberties activists allow student access to the Koran, fifth graders may not receive distribution of the Gideon Bible. In similar fashion, People for “the American Way,” so called, criminalize Bible history courses.

Inscribed in Latin on Governor Bradford’s grave at Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts are these provocative words: “What our fathers with so much difficulty attained, do not basely relinquish.” Contrary to Bradford’s warning, “what our fathers with so much difficulty attained” have been basely relinquished. It behooves us, therefore, to resurrect the telling words of Abraham Lincoln, just weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg. When a college president asked him if he thought the country would survive, Lincoln replied: “I do not doubt that our country will finally come through safe and undivided. But do not misunderstand me … I do not rely on the patriotism of our people … the bravery and devotion of the boys in blue … (or) the loyalty and skill of our generals … But the God of our fathers, Who raised up this country to be the refuge and asylum of the oppressed and downtrodden of all nations…”

This Thanksgiving season, may the “Amen!” to Lincoln’s affirmation resound in America’s communities, schools, churches, and homes, thereby breathing life into the rugged individualism and God-honoring thankfulness that attended birth of “this greatest nation on God’s green earth,”in the words of Michael Medved!

Death by Design, Part IVa: Death of Rugged Individualism
By Debra Rae

For most American families, Thanksgiving Day means feasting, family, holiday fun, and foregoing fast food, more often then not their usual fare. At annual performances of “the first Thanksgiving,” proud parents ready themselves with cameras poised to memorialize their child’s entrance, stage left, in colorful regalia of a Pilgrim or Native American Indian, be that as it may.

Sober thought as to origins of such festivities evades most; but astute contemplation discerns rugged individualism and thanksgiving specifically to God as integral, foundational threads that weave the diverse tapestry of our great nation. Nevertheless, the ACLU would purge our nation of the very God who birthed her—the same God that Abraham Lincoln rightly credited as Source of America’s blessings. To this God, and Him alone, John Quincy Adams committed with humble, but fearless confidence his own fate and the future destinies of this country.

The “God thing” didn’t germinate with the War of 1812, or the Civil War, but rather at the inception of our country. From1609 until 1620, a young and principled William Bradford lived in Leyden, Holland while in exile with Puritan Separatists. Eventually, he became leader of these Separatists, later known as Pilgrims. In August of 1620 the Pilgrims set sail from Southampton, originally for Virginia, in the 90-foot Mayflower and her sister ship Speedwell. However, bad weather then drove them into Plymouth Sound where the Speedwell was abandoned.

About a third of the 100-plus passengers setting sail for the New World were English Puritan refugees escaping religious persecution from Anglican England. In his memoirs, History of Plimoth Plantation, Bradford traced events that led to their departure from England, their sixty-five perilous days at sea, and their first dreadful winter in the New World.

When considerable religious conflict erupted among the 35 Puritans and the other, largely Anglican passengers, open mutiny was averted by drafting the Mayflower Compact, first written constitution in the New World. Bradford was among the signers of this God-centric agreement designed to establish self-rule for the Plymouth colony and to protect rights of all settlers.

After two months of sailing, these hardy sojourners landed at Cape Cod, moving on to find Plymouth harbor. Once having founded the Massachusetts colony, their first year was earmarked by poor and inadequate food, harsh climate, and vulnerability to sickness. Consequently, about half their number died over that winter before Indians came alongside to assist. In gratitude to God for end of the first difficult year, and for a successful harvest thereafter, survivors celebrated along with Native American neighbors in the autumn of 1621.

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Death by Design, Part IIIb:  Death of Sovereignty
By Debra Rae

Commonism’s distinctive feature is to transform private intellectual property and nationally-controlled natural resources into common property—this, in the name of “the common heritage of mankind.” It advances the unqualified notion that all problems cross national and local boundaries. Unless stopped in its tracks, however, today’s burgeoning interdependent, one-world State eventually will result in America’s taking on “the lowest common denominator forced equity demands” (Henry Lamb, Editor Eco-Logic). 

That a just, peaceful, and sustainable society is bereft of traditionalism, capitalism, and sovereignty simply doesn’t fly. Yet America’s youngsters are being fed this bill of sale, and make no mistake. Abraham Lincoln rightly warned that “the philosophy in the classroom of one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” If progressives, futurists, and globalists have their way, State-orchestrated, cradle-to-grave learning will see to it as educrats usher “human capital” into entry-level job fits in order to bolster the global economy. For this to happen, “change agents” in State schools must work diligently to undermine and, then, transform America’s founding principles.

Revising ideals requires introduction of revisionist history in content-free, values-laden curricula. These days, the goose that laid the golden egg, America’s free enterprise system, is increasingly given a bad rap for allegedly being “exploitative.” Technology, it is purported, is an abomination to nature; and Western culture, the root of all evil.

Furthermore, students must be coaxed to cozy up to Point One of the Communist Manifesto, abolishing private property privileges. Never mind that America’s greatness springs from an individual’s right to own and control his own property. Already, the federal government owns hundreds of millions of acres of forests and grazing lands, not to mention their minerals, wildlife, and recreational amenities.

Private areas surrounding World Heritage Sites under UN safekeeping are likewise threatened.  Ostensibly in celebration of their shared global value, nearly seventy percent of America’s national parks, preserves, and monuments are designated as such. In a word, what was once lauded as the American dream is fast becoming a global nightmare, all in the name of “common good.”

Thanks to national education restructuring efforts, America’s youth may not read, write, or compute at appropriate grade levels; but many can (and do) recycle, use condoms, esteem Self, and hug trees as their equals. In the postmodern mindset, breakdown of national boundaries (harmonization) easily trumps sovereignty—no contest. Increasingly, flag-waving national holidays take back seat to an Annual World Citizenship Day fostering planetary allegiance and promoting global government.

Known popularly as the Global Village, the burgeoning New World Order pledges allegiance to the world community (collectivism) and restructures around natural eco-systems (bio-regionalism). Without crisis intervention, America, as we have come to know and love her, is destined for an early grave. Sadly, her youngest progeny will never know what they are missing, and only a handful of patriots will mourn her passing. God forbid that the United States of America be demoted and relegated to but a region in an omnipotent United States of the World.

Debra Rae is Author of the the ABCs of Globalism and ABCs of Cultural-isms , a speaker and teacher, and is a Contributing Editor for WOMANTalk.

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Death by Design, Part III: Death of Sovereignty
By Debra Rae

Referencing the Culture of Death brings to mind highly controversial topics as abortion, embryonic stem-cell experimentation, assisted suicide, or “self-deliverance” so called. But there is pending another equally grievous death—one to which most Americans are oblivious. It involves death of our nation’s sovereignty.

Significantly, a nation without borders is no nation at all (Ronald Reagan); moreover, a worldwide system of needed checks and balances depends upon clearly demarcated nation-states. Sovereignty asks the simple, but essential question, “Who’s in charge?”

Go figure why Clinton colleague Strobe Talbot dismisses national sovereignty as “not such a great idea after all.” Nightline celebrity Ted Koppel goes so far as to characterize nationalism as a “virus,” same term used by Lenin and Stalin, incidentally. Others have diagnosed national sovereignty as an “infantile disease”—indeed, the “measles of mankind.”

For bogus reasons as these, famed historian Arnold Toynbee admitted to working hard at “extracting” sovereignty as if it were a diseased tooth in need of pulling. Accordingly, and right on cue, nationalism even now is being “redefined by forces of globalization and international cooperation,” admits UN secretary-general Kofi Anon.

In its stead, insists Walter Cronkite, “world government is mandatory.” This “most trusted man in America” acts as poster boy of sorts for the World Federalist Association. In this role, Cronkite willingly sacrifices our nation’s sovereignty on the altar of transnationalism. After all, according to Democratic Socialists of America, now is the time to press for subordination of national sovereignty to usher in democratic transnationalism (Eco-Socialist Review, Summer 1991).

The death-rebirth ritual goes something like this: Given capitalism, one has, as it were, two cows. The one he sells to buy a bull. Progressively, with death of free markets, one still has two cows, but now he keeps one and gives away the other. This, we call socialism. Its death spurs communism, allowing government to take both cows and, in turn, to supply milk. Death of communism resurrects what Philip C. Born in The Coming Century of Commonism identifies as the “-ism” of tomorrow.