"Ken Stern watched the increasing polarization of our country with growing concern. As a longtime partisan Democrat himself, he felt forced to acknowledge that his own views were too parochial, too absent of any exposure to the 'other side' In fact, his urban neighborhood is so liberal, he couldn’t find a single Republican--even by asking around.

So for one year, he crossed the aisle to spend time listening, talking, and praying with Republicans of all stripes. With his mind open and his dial tuned to the right, he went to evangelical churches, shot a hog in Texas, stood in pit row at a NASCAR race, hung out at Tea Party meetings and sat in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. He also read up on conservative wonkery and consulted with the smartest people the right has to offer.

What happens when a liberal sets out to look at issues from a conservative perspective? Some of his dearly cherished assumptions about the right slipped away. Republican Like Me reveals what lead him to change his mind, and his view of an increasingly polarized America."

~Book Description from Amazon

Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Everett Piper has a gift for sharing politically incorrect messages that resonate with many Americans. Here is one of my favorites:

"This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt 'victimized' by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable.

"I’m not making this up. Our culture has actually taught our kids to be this self-absorbed and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them 'feel bad' about themselves, is a 'hater,' a 'bigot,' an 'oppressor,' and a 'victimizer.' I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen....This is not a day care. This is a university."

This message has gone viral, but comparatively few have heard President Piper’s moving message about the role of education in America  -- and it is well worth hearing.

"Today contemporary education has become more about the common than the exceptional.  It has become more interested in teaching the student how to get a career and use a condom than how to build character and follow Christ. It’s about acquiring more information rather than more ethics. Education has lost its way and consequently our country has lost its soul and our culture has lost its sense."

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Learn More

• Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth
• ​The Education of Young Americans
  

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"It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag." ~Donald Trump


"When we stand for the flag and anthem, we are standing for our hopes for our children’s future, that they will embrace the principles of patriotism and live out its moral truths of justice, perseverance and courage. We stand for the flag and anthem so they can stand for the flag and anthem." ~Jane Hampton Cook


"People like me intend to keep standing during the national anthem. We do so not because we agree with everything America has done, or everything that has been done in America's name, but because despite all of that the world is a better place because America exists. That seems to me to be worth the honor of respect during the national anthem." ~Martin Dempsey


"Life presents plenty of opportunities for us to disagree with one another and seemingly fewer opportunities on which we agree. Standing together during the national anthem...should be one of those times when we agree, when we focus on the things that bind us together." ~Martin Dempsey


"As a former NFL player, I am one American who will have nothing to do with any NFL Team that cannot find the corporate courage to stand for the millions of courageous past great Americans whose sacrifice gave meaning to our flag and national anthem and to the millions upon millions who still dream to come to its free shores." ~Burgess Owens


"We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty."  ~George Washington.


"If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties."  ~Henry Ward Beecher


"Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" ~Francis Scott Key


"When we honor our flag we honor what we stand for as a Nation -- freedom, equality, justice, and hope."  ~Ronald Reagan


"As we think back over the history of our nation's flag, we remember that the story of its early years was often one of hardship and trials, sometimes a fight for simple survival. ... As the American Republic grew and prospered and new stars were added to the flag, the ideal of freedom grew and prospered. From the rolling hills of Kentucky to the shores of California to the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, our pioneers carried our flag before them, a symbol of the indomitable spirit of a free people. And let us never forget that in honoring our flag, we honor the American men and women who have courageously fought and died for it over the last 200 years, patriots who set an ideal above any consideration of self. Our flag flies free today because of their sacrifice." 
~Ronald Reagan


"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." ~Pledge Of Allegiance 


"Off with your hat, as the flag goes by!
And let the heart have its say;
You're man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away."  ~Henry Cuyler Bunner


"I believe our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is a universally recognized symbol that stands for liberty, and freedom. It is the history of our nation, and it's marked by the blood of those who died defending it." ~John Thune


When Freedom from her mountain-height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night, 
 And set the stars of glory there. 

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure, celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home! 
By angel hands to valour given! 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
And all thy hues were born in heaven. 

Forever float that standard sheet! 
Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us.  ~Joseph Rodman Drake

Learn More

5 Reasons We Stand for the Flag 
by Jane Hampton Cook
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Why We Stand for the Flag
by General Martin E. Dempsey

Displaying and Honoring Our Flag
Source: National Flag Foundation

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​Learn More

• Rape Survivor: A Gun Could Have Prevented 3 Rapes and a Murder
• Gun Control in the UK and Their Warning to Us
• What Happened When Australia Banned Guns​​

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“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” ~Cesare Beccaria (quoted by Thomas Jefferson)
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