Traditional journalism is dead. In today’s swirl of 24-hour-news filled with opinions and out-right fake news, it can be difficult to discern what is true, what’s exaggerated and what’s a flat-out lie.
Here are some strategies and tips for discerning fact from fake news in a sea of opinion, distortions, disinformation and falsehood.
Here’s how and why click bait sites use sensational headlines to trick you into sharing their materials. It’s time we stopped playing into their hands.
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In this episode of Front Porch Sense, Marnie and her husband David Kuhns talk about how society is moving toward an inability to forgive. With technology recording our words and actions, creating a record of nearly everything we do and say, there has to be room for forgiveness and the ability for people to change and grow. Unfortunately there seems to be zero tolerance and no statute of limitations on societal “crimes.”
People were created to learn, change, grow. No one is all good or all bad. If we want to grow and change ourselves we must allow others the opportunity as well. Do we really want to live in a world where there is no redemption? No letting go? No moving on from the past? Where one misstep, one misspoken word, or series of steps/words damns you for the rest of your life?
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We’re hearing a lot about environmentalism with the Green New Deal and Greta from Sweden… let’s talk about practical environmentalism that doesn’t require top-down government bureaucracy and force…
In this episode of Front Porch Sense, Marnie talks about ways that we can all take personal responsibility for the environment in a practical way without the need for intense government intervention or militant environmentalism. This episode includes practical ideas you can start implementing in your life today to take personal responsibility for the environment around you:
Find out more about ways you can take personal responsibility for the environment at www.NaturesGuys.com
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The problems of our society will never be fixed by more laws or more controls. We have enough laws. What we need is self-mastery, self-government. In a word, morality.
The downside of the concept of freedom and personal agency is that people choose things we don’t like or agree with. They do or say things that may even offend our sensitivities. And we may do things that offend theirs. But, if we do not allow others to believe, think, feel or act as they wish, then we can’t expect to have the freedom to believe, think, feel or act as we wish.
Freedom comes down to choice. We can choose what we wish (given that it doesn’t infringe on someone’s inalienable rights of life, liberty or personal property). But, we cannot choose the consequences of our choices. When we make a choice, we automatically reap a consequence. We are personally accountable for the choices we make.
Negative thoughts, words and actions bring negative results. Garbage in. Garbage out. For example, a fixation on sex and an addiction to porn leads to certain consequences … the need for something more shocking and more intense.
“Rather than asking ‘does pornography cause rape?’ we would be better served by investigating whether pornography is ever a factor that contributes to rape. In other words, Is pornography implicated in sexual violence in this culture?” (See Pornography and Sexual Violence, Robert Jensen, Ph.D.)
While outlawing pornography is a possible option — at a “state or the people” level, it most likely will not stop people from creating their own pornography and texting it to others. Outlawing drugs hasn’t stopped drug use. Outlawing guns won’t stop mass shootings.
People who do not possess self-mastery or moral boundaries will violate whatever laws you put in place. Micromanaging millions of people from a top-down approach is next to impossible. The amount of government force required to micromanage that level of individual control would eradicate freedom completely.
What we need is self-mastery and self-control. We need citizens who take personal responsibility for their choices. In a word, we need a moral people.
John Adams said “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The best way to teach morality is by introducing people to God. If they choose to create a relationship with God, God will change them from the inside out.
“The Lord works from the inside out. The word works from the outside in. The word would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The word would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature. (Ezra Taft Benson, “Born of God,” Ensign, Nov 1985, 6)
We don’t need more laws in America. We need people, en mass, to return to God!
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Whether we’re talking about our morality, our economy or our government, the United States and most of the world is walking away from standards. People who adhere to standards are more stable and less susceptible to manipulation. They are better able to govern themselves. People who abandon or over-complicate standards are less able to govern themselves and more likely to be manipulated and invite government intervention into their personal lives.
In this episodes, Marnie Pehrson Kuhns explains the reason why standards must exist outside the system they are measuring. Standards that are inside the system aren’t really standards. They vacillate and are manipulated by the system they claim to measure. This episode explains how the abandonment of standards destroys freedom, prosperity and happiness.
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We hear the slogan Make America Great Again, but what really makes America great? What does greatness look like and how do we return to it?
What really can make America great again? In the 1840’s Alexis de Tocqueville came from France to America to observe first-hand what he referred to as “this great experiment.” When he returned to France and wrote Democracy in America, he explained what he observed that made America great. In this episode, Marnie Pehrson Kuhns shares the secret to America’s greatness that de Tocqueville related and how we can regain it.
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Why do we need the Electoral College and why is the National Popular Vote (NPV) Interstate Compact so dangerous to our freedom? The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact binds states with contracts that require them to appropriate their electoral college votes to the Presidential candidate who has the national popular vote.
This episode explores the dangerous convergence of
open border immigration policy
the proposed lack of citizenship recording in the 2020 census,
the National Popular Vote movement (already approved by at least 15 states + DC)
the proposed policy to make no ID required for to vote.
The combination of these radical policies will prove deadly to our republic.
Warning: As of July 2019, National Popular Vote has been adopted by fifteen states and the District of Columbia. Together, they have 196 electoral votes, which is 36.4% of the Electoral College and 72.6% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.
The following states have adopted NPV. The number out to the right of each state is the number of Electoral College Votes that state represents.
Maryland – 10 New Jersey – 14 Illinois – 20 Hawaii – 4 Washington – 12 Massechusetts – 11 DC – 3 Vermont – 3 Califorina -55 Rhode Island – 4 New York -29 Connecticut – 7 Colorado – 9 Deleware – 3 New Mexico – 5 Oregon – 7
This video from PragerU explains what’s going on in more detail. It was made when only 10 states were on board. Now there are 15.
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“Are you a U.S. Citizen?” … a question proposed for addition to the 2020 U.S. Census has caused controversy. In the past there were two questions. The first asked where the person was born and the second asked those who were foreign born whether they had been naturalized. These questions were not asked in 2010 because a short form census was used. Some say a citizenship question should not be asked. Others say it should.
You might be wondering why it matters. This episode of Front Porch Sense explains the role of the census in how our representatives and presidents are elected and why the citizenship question is critical.
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Mass Shootings and the Blame Game – We have a bad habit of playing the blame game in America. We want to blame everyone but ourselves. Everyone but the person who committed the crime (or the mass shooting). We don’t have the luxury of playing that game in our free nation – a constitutional republic.
The point of a free country is that each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Only in a dictatorship or a monarchy or oligarchy (where people are not free and forced to do things) would the leader of a nation be responsible for the actions of citizens.
Our problem in this nation is we’re abdicating our personal responsibility and constantly blaming others (or the government or the president or the gun) for our problems. Until we teach personal responsibility and stop shifting blame we will never solve the problems in our nation. The eventual destiny of a nation that abdicates personal responsibility is slavery.
Our current President is no more responsible for El Paso than the last President was responsible for Sandy Hook. These things have been going on for decades regardless of administration. The problems are deeply rooted in our society. If we want to solve them, we have to own the root causes of the emotional and mental disturbance in our young men.
This episode of Front Porch Sense explores some of the ways society could be hurting our young men and creating a seedbed for this type of violence.
Personal responsibility is the key to freedom. It’s the key to peace. It’s the key to safety. Teach people correct principles and they govern themselves. The answer isn’t big government. It’s self-government.
We have been given a unique window of opportunity to teach Americans correct principles – the principles that govern a free nation. In the past, conservatives went to sleep when their man was in the oval office. With President Trump, they aren’t going back to sleep. They’re either keeping a close eye on what he’s doing or they’re defending themselves against the onslaught of hostility being fired at them from the other side of the aisle.
Because people are still alert and concerned about what is happening in America, we have the opportunity to help people really get what’s going on — to truly understand the principles that made our nation free. In this episode Marnie talks about how we can be using the next 5 years to turn the tide away from socialism and back toward the republic we were created to be.
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