The Founders’ dream of limited government ended when the Supreme Court ruled that enumerated powers were mere suggestions. We need to walk that back.

I read with pleasure Mike Tsichlis’ piece on the American Dream. It was a wonderful walk through history, written with a flowing pen and a musician’s ear. It almost reached the flowering heights of the Declaration of Independence or the powerful prose of The Federalist.

But the historical reality is that none of the huddled masses thought in that language. Yes, they heard the siren song of what Horace Greeley later put on paper, and gladly endured brutal conditions on small ships to get to America and seek their fortune. However, they only heard one word: “opportunity.”

Like so much of language, America as the “land of opportunity” sprang full-grown from the common mind, much as Athena sprang full-grown from the head of Zeus. It was an irresistible phrase describing an irresistible force pulling people away from truly oppressed lives on the (loosely described) treadmill of sweatshops and slaveholdings of one sort or another. This pull was so strong that they were willing to risk their lives to reach for the brass ring.

The “po-folk” saw a chance to work hard and get ahead in America. The problem with that view was simple. Lots of people left the sweatshops of European cities, only to end up in sweatshops in American cities. They lived in slums and did menial work with little hope of a better life. Many became desperate to make a leap and head for the frontier with little but the shirts on their backs. Some died, but others made it through, ultimately creating the place called “America.”

It was a simple idea that possessed that creative power. You could risk everything to bust your butt and make a better life. This was the American Dream. Period. Full stop.

The second half of the American Dream is the idea that once you produced something, it was yours. No one could take it from you. But that covered wagon you bought could be destroyed in a minute by flaming Indian arrows. The crop you brought in could be stolen by a more powerful landowner. So people banded together to protect themselves and their property. This eventually became governments. Unfortunately, the government itself failed.

Fully stated, the American Dream says this: The American Dream is the idea that you can bust your butt to make a better life, and not have it stolen from you by the government.

This full formulation is very important because it explains our problem in the US. We need the government to be the policeman who stops the thief. But the lure of easy money and power turns that officer into a dirty cop who runs the protection racket for his own benefit. And this ultimately happens at every level. The phenomenon of “regulatory capture” demonstrates it at the highest level.

Regulatory capture is a situation in which a government regulatory agency, created to protect the public interest, instead acts primarily in the interests of the industry or companies it is supposed to regulate. The agency was supposed to set basic “rules of the road” so that everyone “plays by the same rules.”

When the agency hires people from those big companies, it gets worse. And after a tour of duty with the government, the expert can then return to “private” industry and be paid well for his temporary duty in the government.

Our current situation presents the citizen with a bloated federal government that legislates willy-nilly on every vanity project that comes near the D.C. media echo chamber. This is based on the false idea, put forward by New Deal Justices Roberts and Cardozo, that the “enumerated powers” (particularly in Article I § 8) are merely “examples.”

Actually, the Framers were extremely cautious, with Anti-Federalists forcibly expressing a fear that a central government with unlimited powers would become the Swamp. No, they didn’t use that language, but that’s what they were afraid of. All the Federalists were united in explaining that the Constitution simply did not allow that level of central authority. The listed powers were all that the feds would be allowed to do.

We now know that their fears were fully justified. Lord Acton was right. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Constitution allows nearly limitless taxation, but not limitless spending on projects not specifically enumerated. But with unchecked power after the New Deal, the grift was on. Congress could drain your wallet to support its habit, and there was no meaningful recourse. You don’t have “standing” to challenge anything.

CongressCritters and BureauRats love to hand out favors paid for with your tax dollars. The groups that get this filthy lucre are now loyal supporters of the thieves who stole your hard-earned money. They provide campaign finance money to re-elect their benefactors, who then answer the key question: “What have you done for me lately?” There is no end to the imagination of the Swamp.

And this brings us full circle. We saw that the American Dream implicitly understood by real Americans is “The idea that I’m free to bust my butt to make a better life, and NOT have it stolen by the government.” The Socialist Dream, constantly enacted by the Swamp, is: “The idea that the government should steal what real Americans busted their butts to create, and give it to people who won’t get off their own butts.”

James Madison was quite emphatic that competing interests placed in mutual opposition by the separation of powers would help protect the citizen. But since the New Deal Court decisions in Butler and Helvering, the incentives for the Legislative and Executive branches have aligned. Graft and corruption are now approved by the Supreme Court. Most of George III’s evils decried in the Declaration of Independence are now fair game in Mordor on the Potomac.

There’s only one real way to restore the American Dream at the federal level. We must rein in Congress by restoring the limits of enumerated powers, as the Framers intended. With real guardrails, the incentive to steal from hard-working taxpayers will be largely eliminated, and the American Dream will be resurrected.

Ted Noel is a retired physician who posts on social media as Doctor Ted, @Vidzette on X, and occasionally does Doctor Ted’s Prescription podcast on multiple podcast channels.

Source: Resurrecting The American Dream – American Thinker

Well, the associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota–Morris, P.Z. Myers, who has been obsessed with me and my ministry, Answers In Genesis, for years, recently wrote a blog about me titled, “Waiting for Another Creepy Old Man to Die.”

He ended the blog stating: “That’s a problem with authoritarian cults. They are ruled for life by unpleasant, weird people who alienate everyone around them, and maybe instill in them the ambition to be in charge on their own. I hope I outlive Ken Ham, because I’d really like to see the chaos that will follow on his death.”

As we know, God’s Word states that, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2).

So when any one of us dies is not up to what some atheist professor wants. God is in control of both Myers’ life and ours.

But this pagan university professor, who has continually blasphemed and mocked God and Christians, needs to wake up and take note of God’s warning: “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

And if Myers continues in his willing ignorance and rebellion against God, he will suffer a second death after the first death: “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).

I would ask us to all pray for P.Z. Myers as he is well on his way to a Christless eternity. He is 68 years old (younger than me), but God could end his earthly life at any second.

I thought I would start off with this today, as I want to remind us all that we are in a spiritual war. And this war is raging about us even more aggressively now than we’ve experienced in the past here in the West.

Years ago, someone said to me, “If you stand on the devil’s toes, he reacts. You guys must be kicking him in the shins.”

Recently, I’ve seen a level of hate against us that seems to be growing. And really, we should expect this. As we see the enormous number of people saved through Answers in Genesis, including over 100,000 a year at the attractions alone, we know the devil will be active. Actually, I believe that because we are in a war, if we’re not getting opposition, we should ask ourselves what we are doing! As we move the battlefront forward, proclaiming God’s Word and the gospel, we expect the enemy to fight back.

Just to give you a sampling of the enemies of God lashing out (reminding us of this spiritual war we are in), I will include just a sampling of the 20,000+ comments on one of my Facebook posts. The post was short: “Man did not evolve from ape-like creatures; the first man was made from dust, and the first woman was made from the man’s rib.”

Now, there were over 20,000 comments on this post, the majority from enemies of God! Let me share some with you:

“Daily reminder that Christianity is the mentally ill belief that a mud-man and a rib woman got tricked by a talking snek into eating a magical apple that gave them a hereditary illness which can only be cured by joining a human-sacrificial blood-cult so you can forge a psychic connection with a 2000-year-dead Jewish zombie ON A STICK..” [sec]

“It’s a shame a dingo didn’t eat Ken as a baby”

“If you take a flashlight and put it against this dudes ear the full light bundle wil shine on the other side”

“COMPLETE NONSENSE All…ALL..ALL LIARS SHALL TAKE THEIR PLACE IN THE LAKE OF FIRE Instead of preaching the gospel of Jesus AS HE COMMANDED YOU You have chosen a subject YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT”

“Just another Fake Christian Inbred KKKlan nut. He’s upset because his Sister divorced him when she turned 13 years old”

“And lizard people run the government and little mice make the wheels in your head go round and round. Silly science denier. I bet you also think the world is flat”

“Your level of religious fanaticism is equal to Muslims who put suicide vests on children. Your delusions are yours. Do the sane demographic a solid ad keep it to yoyr whack self”

“With an intellect as sharp as your’s, perhaps stick to debating dustmites?”

Okay, you get the idea! There were thousands like this, many of which I would not put in this article because they are so perverse. But should we be shocked at such a response from the world? Actually, we shouldn’t. But this last one I’m including is extremely sad because it highlights the state of the majority of our Christian institutions:

Hey! Theologian here. Ken Ham – I used to respect you vision. Your belief that there are answers in Genesis. Then I went off to Bible college, studied the book for myself, then compared that to what science tells us. Why are we still fighting this? There was no contradiction. Nothing at all in the text that should make us fight science. Genesis 1 WAS A RETURN to science… and you have made Christianity worse off by pretending science presented some type of jedpordy to the Faith. All it really shows is that you believe God didn’t have the foresight to write a Bible built on truth. Or worse, you don’t think God wrote Scripture at all.

So many young people from the church have gone to a compromising Bible college/university and come out believing no different than those who posted the comments I included above. A sad state of affairs but a situation that has greatly contributed to a lukewarm church that is, by and large, not impacting the church and culture as it should.

We really are in a raging war. That’s why Apostle Paul uses so much war terminology, reminding us to put on the whole armor of God so we can fight in this battle.

Now we also need to be reminded that this is a religious war.

Consider the atheists and other secularists (and even some people who identify as Christians) who went “ape” over my post. Over 90% of the comments were negative and most of them were highly emotional in attacking me and what Scripture teaches about origins—blaspheming God, attacking the Bible, many mocking me with the worst kind of profanity, and questioning my intelligence (the word idiot was used hundreds of times!). The emotions on display exposed thousands of evolutionists passionately defending their belief system. So many were so profane or blasphemous that we hid their comments. Obviously for them, origins is more than a science issue. Their worldview is challenged by the Bible.

The evolutionary worldview is a religion, one that’s practiced by those who attack Christianity. They have a nontheistic religion; in fact, evolution fits one of the Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions of religion: “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.” The dictionary definition of religion certainly describes the worldview of evolutionary naturalism. The beliefs of evolutionism purport to explain the entire world’s existence by means of evolutionary naturalism, and thus, it is an all-encompassing faith—a religious worldview.

Furthermore, the secularists who publicly argue against biblical Christianity (like the thousands on my Facebook post) have their own religious cause to promote as they zealously defend their belief in a naturalistic system of origins. What else would you call what they practice but a religion?

And following the definition above, because zealous evolutionists hold their beliefs with “ardor” and “faith,” they can be described as evangelists for their worldview—defending a belief system that informs how they wish to lead a life apart from God. So by this definition and what we saw from the zealous, angry evolutionists on my Facebook page, evolution is a religious faith. And thus, its avid proponents are religious.

As I say in my talks, in an ultimate sense, there are only two religions in the world—one based on God’s Word and the other based on man’s word.

Ken Ham is an author, speaker, and Founder and CEO of Answers in Genesis and its two popular interests: the acclaimed Creation Museum and the internationally known Ark Encounter.

Source: We Really Are In A Raging War: University Professor Says He Is Waiting For Me To Die – Harbinger’s Daily

Gov. Bill Lee Signs Resolution Declaring June ‘Nuclear Family Month’ in Tennessee

This June, Tennessee is saying goodbye to LGBT pride month and hello to “Nuclear Family Month.”

On April 9, Gov. Bill Lee signed a joint resolution enacted by the Tennessee Legislature designating June 2026 “Nuclear Family Month” – a counter to pride month when individuals, companies, governments and celebrities often proclaim themselves “allies” of LGBT pride and family redefinition.

The resolution defines the nuclear family as consisting of “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children” that is “God’s design for familial structure and has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world.”

The Tennessee House passed House Joint Resolution 182 in a 72-18 vote; the state Senate approved the resolution in a 26-4 vote. While the resolution was originally intended for June 2025, the state Senate did not pass the bill until this year. An amendment changed the resolution to take effect for June 2026.

The resolution highlights the harms that result when the nuclear family is ruptured:

• Fatherless families are four times more likely to live in poverty than married-couple families.
• Children without fathers are 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
• Children from fatherless homes are more likely to have mental health and behavioral issues.
• Sixty percent of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
• Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes.
• Fatherless youths are 20 times more likely to be incarcerated.
• Eighty-five percent of youths in prison come from fatherless homes.
• Eighty-two percent of school shooters are raised in unstable family environments or without both biological parents together.

The resolution rejects the “humanistic, globalist ideologies of the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and like-minded organizations that fight for population control through the means of promoting sterilization and abortion practices.”

“The nuclear family is God’s perfect design for humanity and is aligned with the long-held traditional values of Tennessee,” the resolution continues. “The nuclear family is under attack in our beloved State and nation, and it is our responsibility to uplift, protect, and support values that help Tennessee prosper.”

While the resolution doesn’t have any substantial legal effect, it does express the will and mind of the Tennessee Legislature on a very crucial matter.

Tennessee’s courageous and bold effort to replace pride month with “Nuclear Family Month” rightfully draws attention to the institution responsible for building societies: the nuclear family – married men and women and the children they create. Every other state in the union should follow Tennessee’s lead.

This June, pride month may still garner more attention with cultural elites, large corporations, the media, influencers and celebrities in their attempt to be “inclusive” and appease LGBT activists. Christians know that the God-ordained institution of the nuclear family is what deserves positive praise and attention.

Source: Gov. Bill Lee Signs Resolution Declaring June ‘Nuclear Family Month’ in Tennessee – Daily Citizen

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration “zealously” investigated, penalized, and engaged in “aggressive prosecutions” of Christians “with traditional biblical views” — ignoring their conscientious objections and even secretly keeping tabs on Catholic priests, a Department of Justice task force found.

The DOJ-led Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias released 14 findings Thursday, confirming the 46th president’s officials “forc[ed] Christians with traditional biblical views to choose whether to live in accordance with their faith or risk violating federal law.”

In a 200-page report, the task force concluded: “The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith.”

That included prosecutions of pro-life Christians who were given longer sentences than their pro-abortion peers for violations of a federal law protecting access to abortion clinics or pregnancy resource centers.

The report also unearthed new details about a January 2023 FBI memo sent to multiple field offices that called for the targeting of “radical-traditionalist” Catholics as a result of “baseless allegations” from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center.

The FBI’s Richmond, Va., Field Office, which first compiled the memo, later probed a “priest and an entire Catholic sect” as a result of learning that a “career criminal” — who was stocking up on weapons and explosive materials — regularly attended a certain church in the commonwealth’s capital.

Agents who interviewed the repeat offender, Xavier Louis Lopez, noted that he was a self-described “radical traditional Catholic Clerical Fascist” — and, as a result of his professed beliefs, began tracking the priest of his onetime parish, as well as the cleric’s family.

“Lopez had attended Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) Chapel for approximately seven months and participated in three or four catechism classes as part of the process to become baptized,” a Jan. 5, 2023, email from an unnamed FBI employee stated.

“FBI Richmond attempted to interview the priest … who was not cooperative. Additionally, he has been to see Lopez six times in jail,” the email also read. “According to [redacted] he frequently flies back to Kentucky. It appears that his uncle is key people [sic] in the SSPX-MC organization.”

“We would be very interested in any information that you have on the organization, the [sic] set up a conference call tomorrow or a day next week that works for you to discuss further,” the FBI employee added.

The Society of Saint Pius X is a traditionalist Catholic organization that rejects many of the reforms imposed on the church following the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s. The group is best known for its support of the Traditional Latin Mass.

In February 2025, a judge sentenced Lopez to eight years and one month in prison for possessing destructive devices. While his arrested was unquestionably “lawful,” the Trump administration task force faulted the Biden-era FBI for using Lopez’s statement — as well as the SPLC-inspired memo — “as justification to launch a two-pronged attack against traditional Catholics.”

“The Richmond Field Office opened a law enforcement profile, known as a Guardian profile, on Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Society SSPX Chapel, a church that played no role whatsoever in Lopez’s acquisition or possession of the destructive devices,” the task force report noted.

“They interviewed Lopez’s priest … who was uncomfortable and noted that he would need to speak with the church’s attorneys before providing any additional information about his congregant,” it also stated.

Although the priest’s response “was reasonable, the Richmond Field Office viewed it as suspicious and used their suspicion as cover for conducting a broader evaluation” of the priest and other traditional Catholics.

After the Richmond memo drew backlash — and public apologies from then-FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland — senior FBI employees privately stood by the policy of targeting “radical-traditionalist” Christians.

Stanley Meador, then the special agent in charge of the Richmond field office, told a colleague who authored the now-recalled FBI memo: “No apology needed.”

“Keep that head up, this too shall pass. Will make for a great chapter in your memoirs some day!” he wrote in a July 8, 2023, email.

Wray told members of the House Judiciary Committee in a hearing the same month that the memo was “appalling” and “as far as what we can tell, did not result in any investigative action, none.”

The task force report also found that the Biden DOJ and Department of Health and Human Services reversed efforts under the first Trump administration “to vindicate conscience rights” — including for “a Christian nurse” who was “coerced … into participating in an abortion despite her religious objections.”

Additionally, the Biden administration fined Christian universities at exorbitant rates and penalized other religious institutions over issues involving girls’ athletics and vaccine mandates.

“The Biden Administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview and burdened traditional religious practices,” the report concluded.

“These conflicts frequently arose over abortion, gender ideology, and sexual orientation. Ultimately, the Biden Administration penalized Christians who lived in accordance with their beliefs.”

“No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who chairs the task force, in a statement.

“As our report lays out, the Biden Administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans. That devastation ended with President Trump,” he added.

“The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”

The report followed Trump’s February 2025 executive order on eradicating anti-Christian bias in the federal government.

Link to Report

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1438506/dl?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Walking through London nowadays with your gaze raised above the crowd, you may wonder what has become of beauty. Not beauty as a decorative afterthought, nor as a subjective indulgence, but beauty as an ordering principle of the world that we build—a visible testament to our desire to belong, to dwell, and to affirm that life, even in its transience, is worthy of grace. The question is equally aesthetic and moral.

There was a time when London would have answered that very question with unpretentious confidence. Its streets unfolded according to an implicit logic that reached beyond the purely utilitarian, suggesting something unique and infinitely precious: civilization. Proportion, symmetry, and ornament were never imposed as luxuries; they arose from a shared understanding that the built environment is an extension of the human soul. Around St Paul’s Cathedral, before the Blitz, you would encounter not only a masterpiece of architectural composition, but also a setting that truly acknowledged its presence—streets that deferred, facades that conversed, spaces that prepared the eye and the heart for a solemn spectacle.

Like on the continent, the cultural rupture arrived in the wake of WWII. Yet it is essential to speak plainly: the war destroyed buildings, but it did not target beauty. What followed, however, did exactly that. In the name of progress, a generation of planners and architects set aside the accumulated wisdom of centuries, as though it were a burden rather than a gift. The city became not an inheritance to be tended, as it were, but a “problem” to be solved.

The work of Norman Foster illustrates the state of affairs with particular clarity. His buildings are often praised for their elegance, efficiency, and technological brilliance. And yet, standing before 30 St Mary Axe, you are struck not by a sense of belonging, but by a sense of estrangement.

The building does not continue the city; it interrupts it. It is a monolithic artefact to be studied/admired, not a place to be inhabited in the deeper sense.

This, then, is the crux of the matter: modern architecture, even at its most accomplished, has largely abandoned the attempt to create beauty in the full sense of the word. It has substituted for it a series of proxies—novelty, scale, transparency, technical prowess—none of which can satisfy the deeper human need that beauty addresses. For beauty is not merely seen; it is recognized. It speaks to us in a language older than reason, affirming that the place that we inhabit is not hostile or indifferent, but shaped with care—and love.

Nowhere is the abandonment of this ideal more evident than in the Brutalist landscapes that punctuate London’s post-war terrain. The Barbican Estate presents itself as a total environment, a self-contained world of concrete terraces and elevated walkways.

It is, in its way, an extraordinary achievement. However, it is a soulless monstrosity conceived in defiance of beauty rather than in pursuit of it. Its surfaces repel the eye; its spaces resist appropriation; its scale diminishes the individual—the person—to an incidental presence within an overwhelming design.

At the Royal National Theatre, the language of raw concrete reaches a kind of rhetorical climax. The building declares itself with uncompromising force, as though daring the observer to dissent.

And dissent you must, if you hold that architecture should invite rather than coerce, should welcome rather than intimidate.

It would be unjust to deny the intentions behind these aberrations. Supposedly, their creators aimed to build a better world, to provide dignity where there had been squalor, to replace chaos with order.

However, in rejecting the language of beauty, they deprived themselves of the very means by which such aspirations might be realized. For beauty is not an ornament added to function; it is the form that function must take if it is to be humanly meaningful.

Here, the reflections of Roger Scruton are indispensable. He reminds us time and again that beauty creates a sense of home, and that without this sense, we are left in a condition of metaphysical homelessness. A building may shelter us from the elements, but if it does not also situate us within a meaningful world, it fails in its deepest purpose.

The modernist credo, articulated with chilling clarity by Le Corbusier, that the house is “a machine for living in,” reveals the extent of this failure. For a machine, however efficient, cannot love us, cannot remember us, cannot bear witness to our lives. It operates; it does not dwell. To accept such a vision is truly to accept a diminished conception of ourselves.

And yet, even amid this landscape of loss, beauty persists. It survives in the timeless dignity of a Georgian terrace, in the measured rhythm of a Victorian street, in the sudden glimpse of a church spire rising above the urban fabric. These are not relics of a bygone age; they are reminders of what architecture can be when guided by love—love of place, of tradition, of the human presence.

The task before us is therefore not to mourn and criticize, but to recover. To recover the understanding that beauty is a public good, that it belongs not to the architect alone but to all who must live with the consequences of his decisions. To recover the humility that recognizes the city as a shared inheritance, not a canvas for individual expression.

For in the end, architecture is not about buildings, but about belonging. It is about the creation of a world in which the individual—the person, not as an abstract operator but as a being endowed with memory, longing, and affection—can find a place. A world in which the stones themselves seem to say: you are at home here.

Such a world is not beyond our reach at all. However, it will not be achieved through novelty or defiance. It will be achieved only when we once again dare to take beauty seriously—not as a luxury, not as a matter of taste, but as a moral necessity.

Lars Møller | April 30, 2026

Source: In Pursuit Of Beauty – American Thinker