Ron Miller's Blog (68)

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14, New International Version)

At a recent breakfast for our men’s ministry, we were asked to break into small groups so we could meet someone we didn’t know. Since these “icebreakers” are often filled with awkward silence, our pastor gave us a list of questions we could pose to one another, accomplishing the dual purpose of…

Mark my word, you will raise tax rates and you’ll feel good because you went out there and you got those rich people…You campaigned against rich people and you got enough envy whipped up in the country, and you’re going to stick it to those rich people. But guess what? You may not get any more revenue. You may not get any more economic growth. But you can say, “I stuck it to the rich people.” ~ Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

I don’t like emotional appeals. I think…

I recently read a couple of articles which, although they validated my skepticism about government assistance, also deeply troubled me.

The first was an op-ed piece in the New York Times by liberal columnist Nicholas Kristoff, who I will give credit for occasionally acknowledging truths that go against the conventional wisdom of the circles in which he…

Be honest; how many times in the past few months have you uttered the phrase, “I can’t wait until this election is over!”?

I already confessed a few weeks ago that election fatigue had set in, and the commercials, regardless of which candidate is represented, were sending me diving for my remote control’s mute button – they still do! In less than a week, however, it will be over, although we here in Virginia get only a short break until we ramp up again for a gubernatorial race in…

I’ve been a user of social media since before the term was even coined. I was using GEnie and CompuServe in the late 1980s, and was a charter member of AOL when it was first released on the PC under a long-gone desktop operating system and application suite called GeoWorks. As a result, I’ve had the opportunity to witness and experience first-hand the impact of Internet-driven community building on the culture as a whole. The effect has been largely positive in terms of connecting…

The Republican National Convention this year devoted a significant portion of its prime time schedule to women and minority speakers, many of whom are the equivalent of rock stars in conservative circles. I expected liberals, from the bottom of the barrel to the top, to respond to the presence of these speakers, but even they caught me by surprise with the shrillness, ugliness and unhinged anger they showed.

Mia Love, the Republican nominee for the 4th…

The city of Tampa is being inundated, not with flood waters from Tropical Storm Isaac but, thanks to this week’s Republican National Convention, with conventioneers, the press, protesters and counter-protesters, and the occasional Democratic Party convention-crasher, perhaps a first in my experience of watching politics, since tradition and decorum previously dictated that each party yielded the stage to the other during their respective conventions.

I confess, however, that while I…

As I watch the London Olympic Games, I was struck by the displays of patriotism by athletes, their families, and the Americans in attendance, and the thought that came to my mind was, “They’re behaving as if we are still a nation.”

I know that’s a pretty cynical thought, but I challenge anyone to tell me what it is that still binds us together as the United States of America because, frankly, if there is a majority of people out there who share the same values, they need to step up…

A couple of days into the power outage that we’ve been enduring here in Lynchburg, a friend told me that God uses everything to impart a lesson, and that there is a lesson in our predicament. While I agreed with him in principle, I wasn’t in a learning frame of mind at the moment!

As the outage has dragged on, however, and with my family away for the duration in the comfortable air-conditioned homes of friends in Calvert County, Maryland, I’ve had a lot of time to myself for…

He wasn’t just a high ranking government official.

He was a trained sociologist with a Ph.D from Tufts University, and he was a father, too. And he saw the crisis coming.

As an assistant secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was charged with developing policy for what would become the War on Poverty.

At the time, his inclination was more toward scholarship than politics, and he did the research and reached conclusions based on…

Note: Bill Cooper and I met in the winter of 1984 when we were both assigned to Headquarters, Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. I was being re-assigned against my wishes to be a command intelligence briefer under the deputy chief of staff for intelligence, and Bill was coming in to take my place as the Soviet Navy analyst for the 544th Intelligence Analysis Squadron, 544th Strategic Intelligence Wing. That was the beginning of a lifelong…

Dear Mr. President:

You and I agree on practically nothing in the area of public policy, so I don’t expect my words to have any weight with you. Despite our policy disagreements, I have always tried to show you the proper respect as our president. As a veteran and the child of a veteran, I was raised “old school” – I respect the commander-in-chief, even if his politics are not my own.

I also respect you as a husband and a father. Your words and deeds leave me no doubt that you…

The title of this article, of course, is a lie.

This will not be the last word on the Obama administration’s mandate that religious organizations provide contraception products and services, including abortifacients and sterilization, as part of the health insurance plans they offer their employees. The Left will do everything they can to keep this issue going, hopefully all the way to the election.

Friends, while our reaction to this mandate has been appropriate to the threat…

It is very clear from President Obama’s persistent attacks on “millionaires and billionaires” that he has made a conscious decision to secure his reelection by pitting Americans against Americans, a decision manifested in the Occupy movement, which was engineered by organizations and individuals committed to his agenda, and which he has publicly embraced.

It’s not just the “evil” 1%, a creation of leftist mythology, that he is attempting to isolate from the American mainstream,…

The Old Testament Book of Esther describes a turning point in the story of the Jewish people held in captivity, where Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, challenges Esther, who by this time was chosen as the pagan king’s new queen. If she so chose, she could live a life of indulgence while her people suffered. Mordecai warned her of the gravity of the moment in which she found herself:

Mordecai sent back this reply to Esther:  “Don’t think for a moment that you will escape there in…

I was planning to spend the Christmas holidays recuperating from a triceps injury and knee surgery, and enjoying time with family and friends. I wrote what was supposed to be my last column of 2011, and figured I’d re-engage just after New Year’s Day.

Then something so maddening came along that I couldn’t stay silent about it. What it says about liberal condescension toward blacks ought to make us angry, but because we’re…

After decades of promoting education as the first and most essential step toward black self-reliance and success in the larger American society, it appears that the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson is changing his tune.

While visiting the Operation Black Vote headquarters in London, England, Rev. Jackson was asked what black fathers should do to protect their sons from the troubles that compel so many young black men to make poor choices leading to crime, violence and untimely death. This is…

Note: In these difficult times, most of us know someone who is unemployed or underemployed, and this Christmas is harder for many than ever before. I wrote this for them, and I encourage you to share it. It is also available here.

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I had the pleasure this past week of sponsoring …