Seen and Heard: America's Youngest Political Pundit Tackles the Lies and Truths of Politics and Culture - Hardcover

Williams, Kyle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0785263683 ISBN 13: 9780785263685

Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc, 2003

Synopsis

You've heard the saying "Children should be seen and not heard." But teen political writer Kyle Williams is challenging that adage and making a name for himself in the process. As the youngest columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, he has tackled subjects such as abortion, homosexual rights, separation of church and state, and the public school system. In Seen and Heard Williams again takes on the establishment, offering clear evidence that a leftist agenda is at work in our nation. His lively, energetic analysis of current events will leave readers with an understanding of the attack on traditional family values that is taking place daily. Williams's writing style-sound logic infused with passion and conviction-makes Seen and Heard both informative and entertaining.

About this title

About the Author

Kyle Williams, a thirteen-year-old, was first introduced to WorldNetDaily.com readers in 2001 as its newest columnist. His weekly column, "Veritas," was an instant hit. Home-schooled in rural Oklahoma, Williams brings a fresh perspective to the debate table, shattering stereotypes about the apathy of youth. He is sharp, salient, and sure to upset the reigning liberal orthodoxy with perceptive criticisms. He possesses a driving desire to expose liberal propaganda in the nation’s schools and media, and he encourages other young Americans to express their views, trusting that the truth—veritas—will win in the end.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Attacking the Family

IT'S THURSDAY NIGHT. YOU GET HOME FROM WORK exhausted, you collapse on the couch, and you turn on NBC. What do you see? Most often, it is not something a five-year-old should be exposed to, much less a teen or preteen. I don't even know how any adult could call that good, clean entertainment. This scenario could replay with almost any form of mainstream entertainment. The movies, talk shows, cable TV, public TV, or movie channels.

Many say that the entertainment part of our country is a drag on our nation and a negative influence. I have had such thoughts and even wished the entire western seaboard would fall off into the Pacific Ocean. Adios, Hollywood! But, of course, it's much deeper than that. Perhaps it's better to say that the entertainment industry is more of a reflection of America than an influence on it.

This isn't to say that all Americans are begging and pleading for the immorality that "entertainment" puts out. Moreover, many across the real America, the heartland and rural areas, despise it. It's the people who actually appreciate the immorality of American entertainment that keep it alive. But culture isn't a bunch of neatly packed, isolated boxes; it's more like a bubbling pot with everything inside roiling and rubbing up against each other. As such, the filth spills over and has a negative effect on young people and the impressionable.

I'm sure teachers ask themselves daily why their students are so disrespectful, talk in class, yell profanities, refuse to do work, and in some cases, behave violently toward their own peers and even teachers. While to avoid laying blame on uninvolved parents would be irresponsible, "entertainment" certainly does play a noticeable part in our cultural downslide.

Then again, being the greatest influence on young people, the blame for the "immoralizing" of America could be laid convincingly at the feet of the parents.

But how convincingly? Many parents allow their children to watch this sort of stuff anytime they wish. The blame could be laid at the feet of the breakdown of the nuclear family. But then why has the family broken down?

There are many factors in the destruction of the American family, but the overarching reason is an ongoing, relentless attack against the values that undergird it.

And the attack comes from all sides. Besides the hideous entertainment industry's attack on traditional Judeo-Christian values, labor unions and special-interest organizations are playing a major role in this war as well. The National Education Association (NEA), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and others continue their onslaught against these values daily.

The Assault

The NEA has made its views on homosexuality very clear in the past years, as well as revealing other aspects of its antifamily agenda. Flying under the banner of protecting youth from discrimination, groups like the NEA are indoctrinating and recruiting young Americans into the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender cause.

Likewise, Planned Parenthood Federation of America plays a huge role in this war. After making sure every teen in America has a condom, Planned Parenthood works hard to cover up the unintended results, creating a society where killing helpless children is acceptable. This organization has been and continues to be a force in public education, but has unarguably advocated an open and easy access port to abortions, condoms, and other such things for American children. Whether intentional or not, they have become a force against the family with their role in public education.

The National Organization for Women has not only supported these things, but wants any woman to have the option for abortion at any time during her pregnancy and, as a result, is partly responsible for the breakdown of the nuclear family as well.
The ACLU, clear with its agenda to take anything and everything that has to do with God out of government and based on the fallacy of separation of church and state, has worked especially hard to take God out of schools and the lives of American youth. Our nation is dripping with heritage that shows God was once important to us. God is etched into the buildings and memorials of Washington, D.C. Look at the East Coast and see how morality, justice, and American values began there-but the coast has turned into the headquarters for attacking them. Slowly, some have tried to eradicate the reminders of God in public life. It's called religious cleansing. Many of these special-interest groups, burrowing in the schools of America, recruit, teach, and indoctrinate young Americans with ideas and thoughts that no rational person would desire.

We can argue till doomsday whether the attack on the family is intentional. Of course, these organizations play dumb when faced with such accusations, but the end result is clear. Actions are actions, no matter what the thought behind them, and so is the case for this. Many of the left-wing organizations mentioned above would like people to forget what a family looks like; they don't like the picture of a mom and dad and a couple of kids.

Entertainment and left-wing organizations are continually breaking down the American family.

Forming Opinions

In the world we live in, Ryan has baseball practice, Jessica has cheer practice, Mom has work, as does Dad. Obviously, many parents aren't able to watch their children all the time. Our family lives are splintered with each family member's different activities. Eating together as a family each night is almost obsolete. Sitting down to watch a movie together is extinct. Family activities are all but gone. This chaotic picture is what is now called life.

Yet, despite how it may seem, there actually used to be nuclear families. They spent their days together. They worked together; they ate together; they played together; they prayed together and went to church together. Families were strong; divorce was rare. Convictions of morality and faith had deep roots. Their way of life left little time for mischief; additionally, when discipline was needed, the consequences were stiff. Their extended family usually lived nearby or even in the same home, so they had substantial family support. Community was close-knit then; neighbors not only knew each other, but genuinely cared about each other. They had barn raisings, quilting bees, and barn dances.

We always hear this rhetoric from politicians about transforming their communities. Yet there are hardly such things as real communities in mainstream America.

A century ago, parents demanded a lot from their children. The young people were independent and had many responsibilities. Therefore, parents didn't watch them much more than many children are watched today. Bringing it back to the beginning of the chapter, what's missing in the life of 1820s Adam, as opposed to Thoroughly Modern Ryan's life, is the entertainment industry. In the 1800s rap music, video games, the Internet, movies, and all these influences were not even a speck in someone's imagination, much less invented. And that's a good thing.

Nevertheless, parents are not about to get off the hook. Along with the great moral decline of the American society, "absentee" parents are one of the big reasons. With the majority of both parents working, we find many times they seem to care more about their careers than their children. Affluence has become an enemy to many families. Instead of curled up on Mom's or Dad's lap listening to a story, little children are left in front of the television while parents are out making more money.

With involved parents, there would be no entertainment industry to speak of, much less being the way it is now.

As I talked with an acquaintance who lives abroad, I asked what is one of the things that comes to mind about America. She replied, saying that America is too liberal-not necessarily in the political sense, but in that we accept things so much more quickly and freely than other nations do, such as abortion, homosexuality, adultery, out-of-wedlock children, etc. Indeed, America does accept things quickly, rashly, and takes issues too lightly. With all the crime and corruption in the first term of the Clinton administration, he was still elected to a second term; even now that boggles the minds of many. Where have our principles gone?

Americans forget. Americans are lazy. Americans don't pay attention. It's the truth. In a sense, we are all in our little worlds where we can sit down to watch the television all day long and are not interrupted at all. Why? Because we can. The only change from that was September 11, but that was temporary. We aren't forgiving; we just forget. We rationalize evil so we don't have to deal with it. Things are hard to deal with-easier to just let them go, find diversions, or not pay attention.
Why get up from the couch, get dressed, and drive the car out to the local school to vote for the next president? Shoot! Friends is almost on. Who cares about voting, much less joining a political action group, attending a rally at the capitol, or reading the newspaper? The aloofness has a certain appeal to it (it caters to our innate selfishness), though it tends to be responsible for our national disasters.

Schools

Perhaps the greatest example of the effect of public schools in harming the family was at the beginning of the twentieth century. At the turn of the century, the majority of Americans were living in traditional, Christian homes and Charles Darwin's doctrine was introduced into the society, but it had very little influence and was dismissed by most.

At that time, John Dewey began his philosophy of "progressive learning"; as a signer of the Humanist Manifesto, he has been given credit for writing most of it. Included in this philosophy are attitudes that undermine the family and promote euthanasia as well as the right to abortion and divorce. Humanists, additionally, called for the undermining of parental authority.

Much of secular humanism is filled with nonsense. The Humanist Manifesto I begins:

Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. Such a vital, fearless, and frank religion capable of furnishing adequate social goals and personal satisfactions may appear to many people as a complete break with the past. While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is nonetheless obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility that rests upon this generation. We therefore affirm the following:
First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.
Third: Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

The fourth affirmation runs as follows:

Humanism recognizes that man's religious culture and civilization, as clearly depicted by anthropology and history, are the product of a gradual development due to his interaction with his natural environment and with his social heritage. The individual born into a particular culture is largely molded by that culture.

It goes on with more. Says the seventh affirmation, "Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation-all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained."

Again, the main writer is John Dewey, the supposed father of modern education. He shaped the teaching methods. At Columbia University, he began to teach the teachers.

As a founder of the American Association of University Professors, Dewey's philosophy began to infect the mainstream teaching of America-from elementary schools, to middle schools and high schools, to universities and colleges around the country.

In contrast to the beliefs up to twenty years before the turn of the nineteenth century, evolution began to be accepted and was later looked at as one of the greatest intellectual discoveries of the century. America turned away from God and began to seek more materialistic desires. It is no coincidence that humanists believe that there is no all-powerful God, but that we are all god over ourselves.

So, this teaching was taught, and those college students, learning from professors who completely bought into the teaching of Dewey, then went on to lead the country. Washington, D.C., and other seats of power were soon run by the "cultural elite" who knew no God but their own desires.

In an effort to reinforce the secular humanist teaching through a landmark case, the Supreme Court in 1940 found that the First Amendment required a separation of church and state. The groundwork was laid for all forms of religion and God to be removed from all public centers of learning and all areas of government.

Although it was after Dewey's time, those looking to change the culture of America took notice when the 83rd Congress's Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations said, "Theoretically, a society could be completely made over in something like 15 years, the time it takes to inculcate a new culture into a rising crop of youngsters."

Knowing the finding from the 1954 Special Committee, and fifteen years from the landmark Supreme Court decision, the rebellion against all forms of moral and traditional values began. Not long after that, the turbulence and sexual revolution of the 1960s began to unravel the fabric of the traditional family.

It is no surprise that the National Education Association has recognized the humanist teaching of John Dewey. NEA President Bob Chase has quoted Dewey many times in his published columns.

Adding to the already secular humanist teaching, many special-interest organizations wish to push their agenda to the young people of America in an effort to carry it out. If organizations, even as big as the National Organization for Women or Planned Parenthood, wished to lobby all fifty states in order to include certain curricula or social plans, the chances of accomplishing that are slim to none.

Enter the United States Department of Education. With the massive department all centralized to control the public schools of America, special-interest groups have an enormous ability to push their agenda to kids and teenagers.

Planned Parenthood, for instance, plans "health" days at millions of schools each year in which representatives teach homosexuality, birth control, and abortion to young people in junior high to high school, undermining the parental role in these things-frequently even running roughshod over parental teachings. Legislation in Cali...

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0785263683
• ISBN 13: 9780785263685
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 209