:: wikimiki.org ::

KRLA

KRLA

KRLA (AM 870) is a conservative talk radio station owned by Salem Communications. It features many religious conservative hosts, such as Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Dennis Prager. The complete weekday show schedule as of July 25, 2005 is as follows. All times are Pacific. 0000-0300 Mike Gallagher 0300-0600 William Bennett's Morning in America 0600-0900 Laura Ingraham 0900-1200 Dennis Prager 1200-1500 Michael Medved 1500-1900 Hugh Hewitt 1900-2100 Michael Savage 2100-2200 paid programming 2200-0000 Advice Line with Roy Masters

External links

- [http://www.krla.com Station website]
- RLA

Conservative

:For related and other uses, see Conservatism (disambiguation) Conservatism is any of a number of political philosophies supporting traditional values or an established social order. As the word implies, conservatives seek to conserve the existing social order or to reinstate a social order from the past. Most conservative parties are on the political right, but there are countries where a conservative party falls on the left. Conservatism as a philosophy is much older than the left-right division, and it can include adherents from both. In the Netherlands, for example, defenders of ‘Dutch tolerance’ as a traditional national value and Islamist supporters of Sharia law both call themselves conservatives. In English-speaking countries, conservatism often refers to a political philosophy presented by Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke. Burkean conservatives wish to conserve heritage; they advocate the current social climate. To a Burkean, any existing value or institution has undergone the correcting influence of past experience and ought to be respected. Burkeans do not reject change, as Burke wrote "a state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation," but they insist that further change be organic, rather than revolutionary.
Tradition in conservatism
All conservatives value tradition. Tradition does not mean simply custom, habit or nostalgia for the past, though custom does inform tradition and sustain it. For a conservative, tradition is composed of standards and institutions that have been shown to promote the good, and therefore they find authority in tradition and apply it in politics. This authority, be it a person, a literature or a way of life, is rooted in the past, and thus cannot easily change . To keep tradition alive, conservatives pass it down from generation to generation, embodied in the eternal verities or the sophia perennis. Conservatives accept traditional values as authoritative, and judge the world around them by the standards they have come to trust. Many conservatives believe in God, and believe that He is not only the creator of the universe, but also the Author of those conservative values they espouse. Since conservatives believe tradition supercedes the political process, the laws and constitutions of liberal democracies that permit behavior that conflict with traditional values cause friction in their eyes. Conservatives in a democracy choose to participate, separate, or resist. They often participate in liberal republican politics, using government policy to encourage or preserve their values. Good examples of this are the Christian Democratic parties in Europe. Another method of conservative reform, imposing their values on the public, is common among nationalist or religious conservatives. This can take a relatively benign form, such as Conservative Christians trying to order public school students to pray, or a more violent form, such as Islamists putting to death anyone who blasphemes. Armed conservatives who consider their tradition to be absolute for all may become revolutionary conservatives. In Europe the Catholic-nationalist-conservative regimes of Salazar and Franco were examples. Though relatively rare, a modern example of conservatives who withdraw from society and attempt to live their lives in traditional ways is the Amish.
Some traditional values
Different forms of conservatism emphasise different values, many of them overlapping. For example:
- Order over chaos
- Orientation toward the past rather than the future
- The rural over the urban
- Unity and homogeneity, over discord and fragmentation
- The natural over the artificial and technological
- Existence over possibility
- Slow and incremental change over utopian projects
- Hierarchy over egalitarianism
- Acceptance of inequality over redistribution
- Sovereignty over union, in matters regarding the European Union Order Conservatives typically limit innovation out of risk aversion. Change is by nature risky; it can potentially disrupt or even ruin the social order, which is the only existing guarantee that conservative values will survive. Maintaining the status quo at least preserves these values, so conservatives favour heritage over innovation, incremental change over utopian projects, and unity over discord. This attitude is well summed up by the Shakespearean phrase, "Discretion is the better part of valor." Class Some conservatives consider loyalty to their social class to be paramount. These conservatives are almost always themselves of the privileged class, and consider the lower classes to be so intrinsically inferior that the subject does not merit discussion. In ancient Rome, the patrician class had this attitude toward the plebeian class, and much of the history of the Roman republic is a history of the class struggle. Class is not the same as wealth. It is strictly hereditary, and class conservatives look down on the "nouveau riche" as much as on the working poor. This attitude arises from the conservative distrust of socially disruptive behavior; those who have suddenly acquired wealth, like those who never managed to attain it in the first place, have not shown an ability to sustainably manage assets, and so they represent a threat to the traditional system of financial stewardship that drives conservative culture. Nature Conservatives tend to favour what they call the natural. Nature here is meant in contrast to the artificial or created (rather than invoking the natural world, though this is often included). They see evidence of a design or emergent order that is wiser than any human mind, especially one working outside of the rich traditional depository of values. Conservatives who adhere to the natural often appeal to organic metaphors, such as the notion of society as a living organism. The metaphor illustrates values such as 'rootedness', in which society is seen as a tree with its roots in the past and a crown in the present. Cutting contact with the roots would kill the tree. Through this metaphor, conservatives look askance at the potential for progress. Some may even regard the "natural" order as already for the best, so any deviation by definition would worsen the situation. Conservatives who believe in nature prefer hierarchy to egalitarianism, national sovereignty to created unions and acceptance of inequality to redistribution. Western conservatives derive some of their devotion to the free market from this notion. Virtue and Religion Many conservatives wish to enforce what they see as right living. They do not do this out of prudishness or a desire to make other people unhappy, but for two main reasons: first, they believe right living will do their neighbor good (whether he realizes it or not); second, because social mores tend to decay if they are not practiced by the community (which conservatives often find needs a little prodding). So they emphasize morality over a tacit (if not official) relativism, community over the individual and church involvement in government over laïcité.
Classification of conservatism

Cultural conservatism
Cultural conservatism hopes to enshrine the received heritage of a successful nation or culture. The culture in question may be as large as Western culture or Chinese civilization or as small as that of Tibet. Cultural conservatism does not always support its own culture: Kemal Ataturk attempted to transplant some Western institutions into Turkey, creating a republic. Cultural conservatives try to adapt norms handed down through a culture. The norms may be romantic: The anti-metric movement, demanding the retention of avoirdupois weights and measures in Britain, and opposing their replacement with the metric system is a classic example. They may be institutional: In the West this has included chivalry and feudal social structure, as well as capitalism, laicite and the rule of law. In the East it signifies the state examination system in China or widespread cultural tolerance in India. The norms may also be moral, according to social conservatives. For example, in some cultures such practices as homosexuality, abortion, or women who expose their faces or limbs in public are considered immoral, and conservatives in those cultures often support laws to prohibit such practices. Other conservatives take a more positive approach, supporting good samaritan laws, or laws requiring public charity, if their culture considers these acts moral. Cultural conservatives often argue that old institutions have adapted to a particular place or culture and therefore ought to persevere. Depending on how universalizing (or skeptical) they are, cultural conservatives may or may not accept cultures that differ from their own. Many conservatives believe in a universal morality, but others will allow that moral codes may differ from nation to nation, and only try to support their moral code within their own culture. That is, a cultural conservative may doubt whether the broad ideals of French communities would be equally appropriate in Germany. Other conservatives radicalize, instigating a conservative revolution such as the overthrow of the pro-western Pahlavi regime in Iran. Radical conservatism represents a radical and utopian goal. It asserts that conservatives should ultimately seek a radically different form of society from the one currently in place, a society designed to suppress innovation and freeze the culture as it was in some ideal age in the past. Those who go further, and attempt a radical new model of society, are not conservatives but rather utopians. The idea of a radical transformation of society, for contra-innovative purposes, is part of some theories of fascism.
Religious conservatism
Religious conservatives look to the receipt of special knowledge from a traditional source. Note that these values arrive external to their surrounding social order; religion opposes "the world," though it may be informed by the world. So religious conservatism, rather than considering local sources of tradition, prefers the holy organization of church, mosque or temple, which delivers special knowledge received so long ago. This means religious conservatism does not use the word tradition quite like other conservatives. Tradition in the religious context does not invoke an historically informed evolution. Church tradition by definition cannot evolve because it derives tradition from an unchanging divine act. This does not mean that church tradition never adapts, but that any "changes" enacted after revelation are refinements rather than discontinuities. St. Paul illustrates this use of tradition in First Corinthians: "I have received from the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." The Latin word for delivered here is traditio. While some conservatives may be wary of government intervention into the private lives of citizens, even when that intervention is in support of traditional values, religious conservative movements in general tend to support such causes. The almost universal support by secular, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim conservatives for pro-life movements is the most prominent example. Conservative governments influenced by religious conservatives may promote broad campaigns for a return to traditional values, such as the Back to Basics campaign of British premier John Major. In the European Union, a conservative campaign sought to constitutionally specify certain conservative values in the proposed European Constitution. Most prominently, Pope John Paul II lobbied for inclusion of a reference to God, which was narrowly defeated. Radical movements in Islam illustrate the method by which religious conservatism, rather than trying to preserve an existing social order, seeks to overthrow the existing order and enforce an adoption of its own traditions, values, worldview, and lifestyle. This differs from utopian revolutions, which seek to replace the existing order with a more progressive society. The Salafist movement is often politically radical, and violently repressed for that reason. Salafism seeks to re-create the Islamic society which existed at the time of Muhammad's death and for a short time thereafter, rejects the later development of Islamic societies, and can therefore be classified as a radical religious conservatism. The Salafi give great prominence to a disputed hadith (reported statement of the Prophet), which is classically conservative:

Every innovation is misguidance...[http://www.islamicacademy.org/html/Articles/English/BID'AH%20-%20Innovation%20in%20Islam.htm]

Burkean conservatism
The classical conservative tradition in English-speaking countries, which usually regards Edmund Burke as its intellectual source, often insists that conservatism has no ideology in the sense of a utopian programme, with some form of master plan. Edmund Burke developed his ideas in reaction to the Enlightenment idea of a society guided by abstract "Reason." Although he did not use the term, he anticipated the critique of modernism, a term first used at the end of the 19th century by the Dutch religious conservative Abraham Kuyper. Burke was troubled by the Enlightenment and argued, instead, for the value of tradition. Some men, argued Burke, have more reason than others, and thus some men will make worse governments if they rely upon reason than others. To Burke, the proper formulation of government came not from abstractions such as "Reason," but from time-honoured development of the state and of other important societal institutions such as the family and the Church.

"We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence."

Burke argued that tradition is a much sounder foundation than "reason". The conservative paradigm he established emphasises the futility of attempting to ground human society based on pure abstractions (such as "reason," "equality," or, more recently, "diversity"), and the necessity of humility in the face of the unknowable. Tradition draws on the wisdom of many generations and the tests of time, while "reason" may be a mask for the preferences of one man, and at best represents only the untested wisdom of one generation. In the Burkean view, an attempt to modify the complex web of human interactions that form human society for the sake of some doctrine or theory runs the risk of running afoul of the iron law of unintended consequences. Burke advocates vigilance against the possibility of moral hazards. For Burkean conservatives, human society is something rooted and organic; to try to prune and shape it according to the plans of an ideologue is to invite unforeseen disaster.
Conservatism's effect on history
Conservative attitudes can be found in all historical cultures which left a written record of their politics. In the western world, conservative ideas and conservative thinkers are identifiable elements of Classical Antiquity. The best-known modern conservatisms developed in the early-modern and modern periods in Europe. Events such as the English Civil War and the French Revolution helped shape the modern ideologies. The early-modern conservatives tended to support monarchy, but Edmund Burke, who argued so forcefully against the French Revolution, favoured the American Revolution. Since justifications for the American revolution included appeals to long-standing rights of subjects of the British Crown, which had been violated by the King, it could be described as a conservative revolution, opposed to these perceived changes in political forms. At the end of the Napoleonic period, the Congress of Vienna marked the beginning of a conservative reaction in Europe, to contain the liberal and nationalist forces unleashed by the French revolution. Joseph de Maistre was the most influential spokesperson for counter-revolutionary and authoritarian conservatism, with the emphasis on monarchy as a guarantee of order in society.
Impact on other ideologies
Many forms of conservatism incorporate elements of other ideologies and philosophies. In turn, conservatism has influence upon them. Most conservatives strongly support the nation-state (although that was not so in the 19th century), and patriotically identify with their own nation. Nationalism, which sees the nation as a long-term, centuries-old, community, has many conservative aspects. Nationalist separatist movements are by definition radical but also conservative. They appeal to tradition and often emphasise rural life and folkways. The most controversial ideological impact is the conservative element in fascism. European fascism drew on existing anti-modernist conservatism, and on the conservative reaction to communism and 19th-century socialism. Conservative thinkers such as historian Oswald Spengler provided much of the world view (Weltanschauung) of the Nazi movement. However, traditionalist, monarchist, and Catholic conservatives often despised the fascist mass movements, and the personality cult around the leader. In Britain, the conservative Daily Mail enthusiastically backed Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and part of the Conservative Party supported closer ties with Nazi Germany. When defeat in the Second World War ideologically and historically discredited fascism, almost all western conservatives tried to distance themselves from it. The theory of totalitarianism, which treats Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union as equivalent systems, provided the intellectual foundation. Nevertheless, many post-war western conservatives continued to admire the Franco regime in Spain, clearly conservative but also fascist in origin. With the end of the Franco and Salazar regimes in the 1970’s, the relationship between conservatism and classical European fascism became an issue for historians. The relationship with right-wing ideologies (including some that are described as neo-fascist) is still an issue for conservatives and their opponents. Especially in Germany, there is a constant exchange of ideology and persons, between the influential national-conservative movement, and self-identified national-socialist groups. In Italy too, there is no clear line between conservatives, and movements inspired by the Italian Fascism of the 1920’s to 1940’s, including the Alleanza Nazionale which is member of the governing coalition under premier Silvio Berlusconi. Conservative attitudes to the 20th-century fascist regimes are still an issue.
Conservatism and nationalism
Nationalism has an inherent conservative tendency, since the nation itself is usually defined as a centuries-old community. Conversely, any centuries-old community is by definition attractive to traditionalist and Burkean conservatives. Conservatives may describe their preferred values as the national values, implying that they are in some way compulsory for any resident of the nation. In recent responses to terrorism, both premier Tony Blair and opposition leader Michael Howard have suggested that British values and the British way of life must be enforced in Britain. They refer to a kind of 'Britishness' or 'Englishness' which has a literary rather than a political origin - George Orwell, for instance, defended English values and even the monarchy. Value conservatives in Europe appeal to 'national values'. Burkean conservatives value them for their own sake, because they are the result of long experience, but religious conservatives may use 'community values' as a euphemism for their own Christian values, or even for theonomy. All nationalists appeal to national symbolism - the national flag, national historical icons, founders and emblems, the work of national poets and authors, or the representation of the nation by its artists - and this is often adopted by conservatives. Military institutions in particular defend the nation and also provide tradition and ritual, so conservatives often admire military values: duty, sacrifice and obedience. But good intentions do not always bear out, and this nationalism has often and easily degenerated into militarism and jingoism. Where the nation is not independent, open patriotism is impossible anyway. Consider a Kurdish nationalist in Turkey, for instance, with no official institutions to admire. Saluting the Kurdish flag in public means risking arrest by the Turkish police - one man's patriotism is another man's treason. Nationalism, and more generally patriotism, are therefore typical features of modern conservatism, in established nation-states. This was not the case in the 19th century, when the movements inspired by romantic nationalism were necessarily radical opponents of the then existing states, and separatist movements still are. Nor is present-day nationalism confined to self-identified conservatives, or to the right. The perception persists that nationalism is a remote or provincial ideology, but it is by definition the basis of every nation-state. Nevertheless, even nationalist conservatives sometimes prefers the less pejorative term patriotism, and Burkean conservatives would distance themselves from many nationalist groups and ideologies, on the grounds of their radicalism. Nevertheless radical nationalist conservatism has been a major force in European history, no matter how distasteful that may be to many mainstream conservatives. Anti-immigrant and nationalist populist parties, such as France's Front National, continue to include a strong conservative element, and the conservative-nationalist tradition is very strong in Germany.
Liberal, conservative?
In the USA conservatism and liberalism are sometimes seen as polar opposites, yet in actuality the situation is more complex. A major area of difference in US politics is that between social liberalism and social conservatism. Social liberals advocate policies promoting equality and tolerance while social conservatives support established traditions of American society, or norms of their previous generations. The media widely covers the differnces in opinion in issues such as same-sex marriage, sex education, the separation of church and state among others. Fiscally, US liberals are regarded as advocates for limited social spending, consumer protection regulations, and other policies which run contrary to a more fiscal conservative, (or neoliberal) ideal. The overall (US) terms liberal and conservative are generalizations and do not point to any concrete set of ideals or values. The terms Economic conservatism or Fiscal conservatism are general terms, encompass modern neoliberalism, as well as classical liberalism in the tradition of Adam Smith. Popularily used outside of North America, the traditional usage of liberal refers only to these free-market policies. For example, in Europe 'liberal-conservative' is an accepted term. Differences in meaning and usage of the term 'liberal' have contributed to some confusion, see Liberalism. Theorists of liberalism often assert a moral justification for the free market, grounded in principles of individual liberty and individual choice. Their support is not moral or ideological, but driven by the Burkean notion of prescription: what works best is what is right. Conservatives might also emphasise the importance of civil society in this context: government intervention in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society. Historically, many arguments have been advanced for the free market, and liberal principles in general. Present western classical-liberalism and political conservatism may have reached their pro-market position by different routes, but by now the lines have blurred. Rarely will a politician claim that free markets are "simply more productive" or "simply the right thing to do" but a combination of both. This merging of the classical liberal and conservative positions is found in most western conservative movements. In any case the free market itself is not an issue, for western conservative movements. They operate in long-established market economies: it is the degree of government intervention that is at issue. One archetypal free-market conservative government of the late 20th century - the Margaret Thatcher government in the UK saw deregulation as the cornerstone of contemporary economic conservatism. Thatcher added privatisation to this policy, and privatised British Airways, with remarkable success, and British Rail, with rather more mixed results. She cut taxes (especially on the upper income brackets) and slowed governmental growth. Proponents of Thatcherism attribute the unparalleled economic boom of the early 1980s to the late 1990s to these policies. Capitalism, and the outcome of the free market, may conflict with value conservatism. At times, as the Communist Manifesto emphasised, capitalism and free markets have been profoundly subversive of the existing social order:
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production...
That economic system continues to conflict with traditional attitudes, for instance in its massive distribution of pornography in many western countries. So it is possible to be a value conservative without supporting market liberalism - at present, this is a common political stance in, for example, Ireland. And not all supporters of the free market are social conservatives. Fiscal conservatism is not a political philosophy, and more a tradition of prudence in government spending and debt. Edmund Burke, in his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France', articulated its principles:
...[I]t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
In other words, a government doesn't have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.
Nature and environment
In early liberal philosophy 'Nature' and the environment were treated as a resource to be exploited: value derived from their human use, in accordance with the labor theory of value. Most early conservatives, however, saw the value of Nature as inherent. Both strands have influenced conservative politics in many countries, since the 19th century. The etymology emphasises the close correlation between the early conservation movement and conservative ideals. In recent decades, deep ecology has emerged as parallel, non-anthropocentric conservative philosophy, with remarkable similarities in value preferences. Free-market liberals with environmental concerns are uncomfortable with such strong environmentalist positions. They tend to view free markets as an appropriate instrument, in this context. Given that pollution is an inefficiency, and given that consumers like "green" or "organic" products, the market should protect the environment. Others, conservative and non-conservative, radically dispute this, and see the market and commercialisation as one of the chief threats, if not the sole cause, of damage to the natural world. That may elicit no more than anti-commercial populism among value conservatives, and a shift in consumer preferences. More fundamentally, some conservatives see ecological conservation as necessary to preserve traditional values. European conservatives often identify rural life as the source, or sole remnant, of traditional society, and have often promoted a comprehensive ruralist ideology, usually in specific national versions. Ruralist conservatism inspires several political parties, such as the French Chasse-Pêche-Nature et Tradition (Hunting-Fishing-Nature and Tradition). Conservatives are a prominent element within most European Green Parties. In Britain, the electoral system leaves little room for third parties, and a Blue-Green Alliance with the Conservative Party would be necessary for electoral success. Technological conservatism is often part of environmentalist philosophy, rejecting especially the destructive effects on nature and ecosystems. There is also a long tradition of technological scepticism in western culture, usually directed against socially disruptive effects, and potentially dangerous consequences. The term 'conservatism' is also used in the history of technology to describe the reluctance - on grounds of cost, effort and disruption - to replace a functioning technology by another.
Biological theories on racial differences
Because some conservatives value what they consider 'natural' (also in the sense of pre-existing and given), conservatives often appeal to biological theories and biological analogies. They may form an integral part of a conservative position, or they may be used to justify it. The most common use of biology in conservatism is to use claimed inherent differences to justify inequality and social stratification. They correspond to the belief in inherent differences in talent in liberal social philosophy. The belief that the poor deserve their status is historically widespread, and not specific to one culture. In the late 19th century, however, European biological theories on race, culminating in the idea of Social Darwinism, became the main theoretical reference for conservative justifications of inequality. Later, several waves of IQ theories assumed this function in conservative social philosophy. Under influence of genetic research, both of these sources have merged, producing a range of vehemently disputed theories, on the genetic basis and the inevitability of inequality. Influential examples include The Bell Curve and similar work, explaining socio-economic inequality in multi-ethnic societies by hereditary differences in IQ among racial groups, and IQ and the Wealth of Nations which attributes global inequalities to national differences in average IQ. There is also a long tradition of non-biological theories of cultural superiority, which influenced 19th-century western colonialism. Partly due to the influence of the Clash of Civilizations theory, belief in the superiority of western culture has now become a standard of western conservative thought. Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's comment on the September 11 attacks is exemplary:

We must be aware of the superiority of our civilisation, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and - in contrast with Islamic countries - respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its value understanding of diversity and tolerance... The West will continue to conquer peoples, even if it means a confrontation with another civilisation, Islam, firmly entrenched where it was 1,400 years ago.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3041288.stm]

Conservatism and the Right
In western democracies, 'conservative' and 'right-wing' are often used interchangeably, as near-synonyms. That is not always accurate, but it has more than incidental validity. Certainly the enemy is in both cases the same: the political left. (Although left-wing groups and individuals may have conservative social and cultural attitudes, they are not generally accepted, by self-identified conservatives, as part of the same movement). On economic policy and the economic system, conservatives and the right generally support the free market, although less so in Europe than in other places. Attitudes on some ethical and bio-ethical issues - such as opposition to abortion - are accurately described as either 'right-wing' or 'conservative'. Burkean conservatives favour incremental over radical change, even from the right. Some conservatives distrust the xenophobic and even racist sentiments prominent on the political right. Protectionism and anti-immigration policies may conflict with free-market conservatives' support for deregulation and free trade. Some conservatives oppose military interventionism, inspired by early British conservative thinkers, such as David Hume and Edmund Burke. Burke saw imperialism as interfering with the traditions and organic make-up of the colonised societies. However it is equally true, that there are numerous examples of theocratic religious conservatives, conservative nationalists, jingoist conservative imperialists, and conservative racists - and of ‘respectable’ conservatives allied with them. The Conservative Party in Britain was a staunch defender of the British Empire, and was responsible for initial brutal repression of African decolonisation. The revered Conservative Winston Churchill wrote in the 1920's that he was "strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.", and did in fact authorise use of poison gas in Iraq. It is the degree of political taboo, rather than inherent ideological incompatibility, that determines the overlap between 'respectable' conservatives and the right. In European parliamentary systems, conservatives currently ally with centrist groups, or even some on the left, rather than with the xenophobic-populist right. All mainstream parties in Belgium cooperate to exclude the Flemish-separatist and xenophobic Vlaams Belang, altough some politicians wish to break this 'cordon sanitaire', and the mainstream parties in France sometime support each others candidates in run-off elections, where that is necessary to exclude the far-right Front National (FN) party (in March 1977, and then in March 1983, FN is present on RPR-UDF lists at municipal elections; in 1988, RPR and UDF right-wing conservative parties allies with the FN in the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var regions. In March 1989, they have common lists in at least 28 cities of more than 9 000 inhabitants. Those alliances are condemned in 1991, but a dozen right-wing deputies gain FN's support in 1997.
Conservatives in various countries
For information on American Conservatism.
Europe
In the United Kingdom, Burkean conservatism is the dominant tradition. However, there is no organisational continuity since the time of Edmund Burke, and he is certainly not the 'founder of the Conservative Party'. Contemporary British conservatives may trace their roots to both the Tories of Canning and the early Whigs (who opposed the monarchy). The Tories, who continued to represent the interests of the aristocracy, in contrast to the Whiggish mercantile class, dominated British politics from the 1770s and the 1830s. Burke, the so-called "Father of Modern Conservatism," articulated a 'progressive' conservative position through the Whig party. Nominally, the modern British Conservative Party was founded out of the Tory party by Sir Robert Peel in the 1840s, splitting almost immediately, over the issue of protectionism. The anti-protectionist faction joined with some Whigs and radicals to form the Liberal coalition, which was to dominate politics for much of the rest of the nineteenth century. A Liberal-Conservative coalition during the first World War, and the rise of the Labour Party, hastened the collapse of the Liberals in the 1920s. After the second World War, the Conservative party made concessions to the socialist policies of the left. This was partly in order to regain power, but also the result of the early successes of central planning and state-ownership forming a cross-party consensus. Under Margaret Thatcher the party returned to classical liberalism. For more detail, see History of the Conservative Party. In other parts of Europe, mainstream conservatism is often represented by the Christian-democratic parties. They form the bulk of the European Peoples Party fraction in the European Parliament. The origin of these parties is usually in Catholic parties of the late 19th and early 20th century, and Catholic social doctrine was their original inspiration. Over the years, conservatism gradually became their main ideological inspiration, and they generally became less Catholic. The German CDU, its Bavarian sister party CSU, and the Dutch CDA are Protestant-Catholic parties. Germany and German-speaking Europe have many non-mainstream conservative movements and an active and influential conservative intellectual tradition. They influence the right wings of the CDU and CSU, and many other right-wing parties and organisations, including neo-nazi groups. However much of the German right is also radical, and officially categorised as 'anti-constitutional' by the German internal security service.
China
China is unique in experiencing roughly two millennia of "feudalism," from around the second century BC until the 20th century, during which Confucian or neo-Confucian thought was endorsed by the state. This long continuity in institution and thought produced a set of values and social standards for Chinese conservatives to defend, especially: reverence for elders, authority figures and the state examination system. These traditional Chinese values are derived from Confucianism, which has an importance in East Asia comparable to Christianity in the West, with particular emphasis on sacrifice, hierarchy, virtue and merit. Ironically, today the Chinese Communist Party exerts the most powerful force in mainstream Chinese conservatism, as it has transitioned from strict communism into important norms of previous Chinese regimes. It is seen by some as the recipient of the Mandate of Heaven, a traditional Chinese idea, and its rulers do not protest at the designation. Just as before, the ruler is revered and generally seen as worthy of praise, with most criticism repressed not simply by law but also by taboo. The party itself has moved to a burgeoning Chinese nationalism as a basis for its legitimacy, and it does not really advocate revolutionary theory, adhering instead to a certain ideological flexibility consistent with Deng Xiaoping's dictum, seek truth from facts. During the first twenty or so years after 1949, the Communist Party did posess a conscious revolutionary spirit. Its leader, Mao Zedong, excoriated Chinese tradition as a vestige of feudalism; the government eliminated opposing views during the Anti-Rightist Movement; the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards tried to manufacture new Chinese "worker" values, notably by frowning on Confucian morality, issuing the Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong instead and "reforming" traditional art to mirror the new standards. The party only transitioned after Mao's death, which opened a power vacuum that would determine the party's future orientation. Three factions wrestled to succeed Mao after his death in 1976: leftist Maoists, who wanted to continue the revolutionary mobilization; rightist restorationists, who advocated a return to the Soviet model of communism; and rightist reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, who hoped to reduce the role of ideology in government and overhaul the economy. Deng eventually won the seat of the party. While stressing his continuity with Mao, he soon initiated a series of economic reforms and promulgated his Four Cardinal Principles, which clearly outlined (and slightly liberalized) government control over ideology. The party today stems from Deng Xiaoping, and like him it asserts the primacy of pragmatism over communism while maintaining the iron dominion of the Communist Party. His ostensibly communist descendents, notably Jiang Zemin, continued to stray from communist theory on an ad hoc basis while incorporating any convenient parts when useful. The result combined heavy preference for economic growth, hostility to efforts to decentralize power and support for a burgeoning Chinese nationalism, a fusion Deng called Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Traditional Chinese values have since surged, rather assertively, under the Communist regime. Chinese nationalism tends to speak highly of a centralized, powerful Chinese state, so the government is attempting to win and maintain the loyalty of both its own citizens and that of recently departed overseas Chinese. Recent bestseller China Can Say No expresses a sentiment in favor of a uniquely Chinese path that, tellingly, does not have to involve American norms, such as individualism and Western liberalism. Moreover, the tide may still be coming in for Chinese nationalism, as the next generation of Chinese leaders will have grown up in an environment of nationalism. Since the 1990s, there has been a neoconservative movement in China (not connected with the US neoconservative movement).
See also

- Bioconservatism
- Conservative extension (Mathematical logic)
- Conservative Party (UK)
- Constitutional Conservatism
- Christian Democratic Union of Germany
- Conservative Revolutionary movement
- Libertarianism
- New Right
- Old Right
- Paleoconservatism
- Reactionary
- Religious right
- Republitarianism
- Traditional Catholic
- Fundamentalism
Further reading

- Russell Kirk. The Conservative Mind. Regnery Publishing; 7th edition (October 1, 2001): ISBN 0895261715 (hardcover).
- Edmund Burke. Reflections on the Revolution in France, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. October 1997: ISBN 0872200205 (paper).
External links and references

World Wide Web links

- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-60 Dictionary of the History of Ideas:] Conservatism.
Freenet links

- [http://localhost:8888/SSK@a~F76Clr4Cj9FNtr14W2u7p2mEgPAgM,RqmBC5XFYJ0ZxuMt7Zwscg/ConservativeAlert/4// Conservative Alerts]
- ja:保守 simple:Conservatism

Talk radio

Talk radio is a radio format which features discussion of topical issues. Most shows feature a regular host, who interviews a number of different guests Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting conversations with listeners who have placed telephone calls to speak with the program's host or guest. Listener contributions are usually screened by a show's producer(s) in order to maximize audience interest and, in the case of commercial talk radio, attract advertisers. Generally, the shows are organized into segments, each separated by a pause for advertisements. (In public or non-commercial radio, sometimes music is played in place of commercials to separate the program segments).

History

Talk radio has existed since at least the mid-1950s. New York's John Nebel was among the first to explore the medium. Two radio stations—KMOX, 1120 AM in St. Louis, Missouri, and KABC, 790 AM in Los Angeles—adopted an all-talk show format in 1960, and both claim to be the first to have done so. KABC station manager Ben Hoberman and KMOX station manager Robert Hyland independently developed the all-talk format. In the 1970s and early 1980s, as many listeners abandoned AM music formats for the high fidelity sound of the FM radio dial, the Talk Radio format began to catch on in more large cities. Former music stations such as WLW (Cincinnati, Ohio), WHAS (Louisville, Kentucky), WHAM (Rochester, New York), WLS (Chicago, Illinois), KFI (Los Angeles, California), WRKO (Boston, Massachusetts) and WABC (New York, New York) made the switch to all-talk as their ratings slumped due to listener migration to the FM band. Talk radio is not limited to the AM band. "Non-commercial" usually referred to as "public radio", which is located in a reserved spectrum of the FM band, also broadcasts talk programs. Commercial all-talk stations can be found on the FM band in Los Angeles, Boston and other cities. The commercial FM talk stations often feature hosts such as Tom Leykis and Howard Stern whose audiences are comprised of more men than women. These shows often rely less on political discussion and analysis than their AM counterparts, and often employ the use of pranks and staged phone calls for entertainment purposes. In the United Kingdom, the leading talk radio station nationwide is talkSPORT, formerly called Talk Radio and launching in 1995 on the AM band. The leading local talk station is LBC in London (Britain's first commercial radio station in 1973), specialising in news talk and topical debate on FM. Both are commercial stations though the BBC do offer ad-free rival services that tend to be slightly less popular and put fewer calls to air. Nationally, the BBC operate Radio 5-Live on AM with a format similar to that of TalkSport. They also operate numerous regional services around the UK on the FM band, with BBC London being their flagship local talk radio station, and a direct rival to LBC.

U.S. politically-oriented talk radio

The United States saw dramatic growth in the popularity of talk radio during the 1990s. The repeal of the FCC "fairness doctrine" in 1987-which had required that stations provide free air time for responses to any controversial opinions that were broadcast-provided an opportunity for a kind of flatly partisan (and often intentionally inflammatory) programming that had not previously existed. (There had been some precursors for this, such as the Los Angeles-area controversialist Joe Pyne, who would attack callers on his program in the early 1960s – one of his famous insults was "gargle with razor blades!" – as well as the similar Bob Grant in New York City.) The most successful pioneer in the 1990s talk radio movement was the politically conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's success demonstrated that there was a market for passionately delivered conservative (and in most cases, partisan Republican) commentary on contemporary events, and many nationally-syndicated hosts have followed Limbaugh's lead in recent years, including Ben Ferguson, Lars Larson, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Larry Elder, Michael Reagan, Ken Hamblin, and The Weekend Warriors. The Salem Radio Network syndicates a group of religiously-oriented Republican activists, including evangelical Christian Hugh Hewitt and Jewish conservatives Dennis Prager and Michael Medved. Libertarians such as Neal Boortz have also achieved some success. Many of these hosts also publish books, appear on television, and give public lectures (Limbaugh, again, was a pioneer of this model of multi-media punditry). Politically liberal talk radio aimed at a national audience has also emerged, although its ultimate success in becoming competing with conservative talk radio for dominance remains in question. Air America Radio, a network featuring The Al Franken Show that was founded in 2004 as a "progressive alternative" to right-wing talk, is a prominent example of liberal talk on commercial radio, and there are syndicated liberal talk programs of recent vintage as well, such as The Ed Schultz Show. In some markets, local liberal hosts have existed for years, such as Bernie Ward in San Francisco, Alan Colmes in New York, and Mr. KABC in Los Angeles. A few earlier syndicated programs were hosted by prominent Democrats who were not experienced broadcasters, such as Jim Hightower, Jerry Brown, Mario Cuomo and Alan Dershowitz; these met with limited success, and Air America has been faced with various legal and financial problems. Left-wing opinion radio has long existed on the Pacifica network, though only available in a small number of cities, and in formats that more often act as a volunteer-run community forum than as a platform for charismatic hosts who would be likely to attract a large audience. Some conservatives argue that the long-format news programming on National Public Radio serves as a platform for liberal commentary on radio, although the network denies any partisan agenda, and FAIR recently identified NPR's disproportionate reliance on Republican sources [http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1180].

Talk radio in Canada

In contrast to talk radio stations in the United States where syndicated programs tend to make up a significant part of most schedules, privately-owned Canadian talk radio stations tend to be predominantly local in programming and focus. There is no Canadian content requirement for talk radio, or "spoken word", programming. The only nationally-syndicated, politically-oriented weekday talk radio show in Canada is Adler On Line, hosted by Charles Adler and heard on eleven stations across the country. Peter Warren's Warren on the Weekend is heard Saturdays and Sundays. Both programs are distributed by the Corus Radio Network and, coincidentally, both hosts had hosted different morning call-in programs in the same time slot on Winnipeg, Manitoba's CJOB 680 before they became nationally syndicated (Adler's show still originates from CJOB and retained its original title, while Warren is now based in Victoria, British Columbia.) Prior to Adler On Line, Corus had syndicated Rutherford, hosted by Dave Rutherford and originating from its Calgary station, QR77. Rutherford is no longer syndicated nationally but continues to air in Calgary and London. Other Canadian talk radio programs which have been syndicated to different markets include:
- Canada's Business Report
- The George Stroumboulopoulos Show airs on Sunday nights on stations in Toronto and Montreal.
- The Home Discovery Show, a call-in home renovation program hosted by Shell Busey.
- Home Focus, a weekend program about home renovations hosted by Ren Molnar. It is the most widely distributed talk radio program in Canada.
- Love and Romance, a relationship advice program hosted by Sue McGarvie.
- Prime Time Sports, a sports talk program hosted by Bob McCown. A three-hour program originating from The Fan 590, usually only the third hour is broadcast nationally.
- The 'X' Zone, a nightly show about paranormal topics hosted by Rob McConnell. It is also syndicated throughout the United States. The two largest talk radio networks in Canada are the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's English language CBC Radio One and French language Première Chaîne. These stations typically produce their own local morning and afternoon programs and regional noon hour programs to go along with the network programming that is aired during the rest of the day. Both networks are commercial-free. Privately-owned talk radio syndication networks in Canada are generally formed for the purposes of sharing programs across a group of stations with common ownership, although some are formed to distribute their one or two talk radio programs to a number of stations regardless of ownership. The largest of these is the Corus Radio Network. Others include the CHUM Radio Network and the Standard Radio Network. Syndicated programs from the United States which air on Canadian radio stations include:
- Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, arguably the most widely distributed U.S.-based program in Canada
- The Dr. Joy Browne Show
- Dr. Laura
- GameTime React with J.T. the Brick
- The Jim Rome Show
- The Phil Hendrie Show on CKTB St. Catharines

Talkback radio in Australia

In Australia, talk radio is known as talkback radio. The most popular station broadcasting talkback radio is historically Sydney's 2UE, whose right-wing hosts, particularly John Laws, are widely syndicated across the continent, though it has in recent years been eclipsed by Sydney's 2GB after the defection of 2UE most popular talkback host, Alan Jones.

Variety of formats

Other topics of discussion in talk radio include:
- Ethics and Morality from Dr. Joy and Dr. Laura,
- Relationships, as on shows such as Loveline and The Satellite Sisters
- Mental health from David Viscott
- Computers from Leo Laporte and Kim Komando,
- Consumer advocacy e.g. Clark Howard,
- Automobiles, as on Car Talk,
- Personal finance from Bob Brinker and Dave Ramsey, and
- Movies from Mike Mayo and Max Weiss. Other hosts specialize in talk radio comedy such as Phil Hendrie. George Noory and Art Bell take turns hosting the late-night talk radio show Coast to Coast AM, which deals with a variety of paranormal topics. Jeff Rense, who hosts an Internet radio show, also features paranormal matters, conspiracy theories, and some politics. Radio show hosts such as Alex Jones focus on exposing Government corruption. Some shock jocks such as Opie and Anthony, Ron and Fez, Howard Stern, Don Imus, and Tom Leykis, are also considered talk radio hosts. Sports talk radio can be found locally and nationally (with the networks ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and Sporting News Network). Sports talk stations like WFAN in New York City and WEEI in Boston have done well in the ratings (aided by baseball and football game broadcasts).

External links

- [http://www.talkradioforums.com/ Talk Radio Forums] - discussion board for talk radio shows.
- [http://www.talkers.com/ Talkers Magazine] - features news and seasonal ratings.
- [http://talkradiofan.blogspot.com/ Talk Radio Fan] - talk radio blog.
- [http://www.talkjunkie.com/ TalkJunkie] - talk radio host links. Category:Radio formats

Salem Communications

Salem Communications is a Christian radio company operating in the United States, with 104 stations across the country, pending acquisitions, that are primarily concentrated in the nation's biggest markets. In the top 25 markets, Salem is the third largest radio station owner after Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting. When purchasing radio stations, the company focuses on acquiring outlets with powerful transmitters. This is the opposite of how many Christian broadcasters operate, where a common practice is to gobble up large numbers of low-power translators. Salem operates three strategic formats: Christian talk and teaching, contemporary Christian music, and a news/talk format. Salem also ownes a few oldies stations, a country station and a Hawaiian music station in the Honololu market. The company's Salem Radio Network subsidarary produces several leading talk radio shows as well as a 24-hour news service that are distrubted to more than 1900 radio affiliates. The company also publishes magazines and websites, notably CCM Magazine, TheFish.com, crosswalk.com, christianity.com, ChristianJobs.com, and oneplace.com. Salem also develops open source broadcast software through its Salem Radio Labs group.

External links

- [http://www.salem.cc/ Salem Communications]
- [http://www.srnonline.com/ Salem Radio Network]
- [http://www.salemradiolabs.com/ Salem Radio Labs] Category:Radio broadcasting companies of the United States Category:Christian media companies

Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt is a conservative American radio talk show host, author, and blogger. Hewitt is a Professor of Law at Chapman University Law School, where he teaches constitutional law, and has also taught torts and administrative law. Hewitt graduated from Harvard College cum laude with a degree in Government in 1978. He was Order of the Coif at the University of Michigan Law School and received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1983, magna cum laude. Hewitt clerked for Judges Roger Robb and George MacKinnon on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983-84, and then went on to serve as Special Assistant to Attorneys General William French Smith and Edwin Meese, Assistant Counsel in the White House Counsel's Office, General Counsel for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where he finished his career in the Reagan Administration as Deputy Director of the agency, having been confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate. Hewitt returned to California to oversee construction of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace as the Library's executive director from groundbreaking through dedication and opening at the request of former President Richard Nixon, for whom he had worked as a ghostwriter between college and law school in San Clemente, California, and New York City. When he left the library to practice law, Hewitt also began a weekend radio talk show for Los Angeles radio station KFI, where he broadcast from late 1990 to 1995. In the spring of 1992 he began co-hosting Los Angeles PBS member station KCET's nightly news and public affairs program "Life & Times," and remained with the program until the fall of 2001, when he began broadcasting his radio show in the afternoons. Hewitt received three Emmys for his work on "Life & Times" on KCET, and also conceived and hosted the 1996 PBS series "Searching for God in America." Hewitt is known best for his political blog and his nationally syndicated radio show, "The Hugh Hewitt Show," broadcast from Los Angeles radio station KRLA 870 AM in the afternoon drive slot. The show can be heard on 70 stations Monday through Friday, and more on the weekends. Guests on the show include the Beltway Boys, Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke; the "Smart Guys," law professors Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke Univesity and John Eastman of Chapman University; defense expert Frank Gaffney; United Nations correspondent Claudia Rosett; Mark Steyn of the London Daily Telegraph and Steynonline.com; and James Lileks, the Minnesota columnist. His sidekicks include Generalissimo, Moses his servant, and some of the Fraters Libertas bloggers, including "Peeps" the Elder. References to Hewitt's wife of over 20 years, "the fetching Mrs. Hewitt," are made from time to time, although Hewitt will not reveal her first name (Betsy) to preserve an aura of mystery about her. Hewitt is a weekly columnist for The Daily Standard, the online edition of The Weekly Standard, World Magazine and occasionally appears as a political/social commentator on programs such as The Dennis Miller Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Larry King Live, The O’Reilly Factor and The Today Show.

Books

- First Principles: A Primer of Ideas for the College-Bound Student
- Searching for God in America
- The Embarrassed Believer
- In, But Not Of : A Guide to Christian Ambition
- If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It
- Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World

External link

- [http://www.hughhewitt.com/ HughHewitt.com] Hewitt, Hugh Hewitt, Hugh

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager (born August 2, 1948) is a syndicated radio host, columnist and public speaker in the United States. Prager is an advocate of Judeo-Christian values and other conservative values. Prager, who describes himself as "passionate centrist" and a "JFK liberal," is a critic of contemporary liberalism, which he believes has abandoned its historic alienation from leftism, and of the Democratic party, which he believes has abandoned, among other liberal principles, its historic commitment to spreading liberty. Prager often presents his political positions in moral terms. In his articles, broadcasts, and speeches, Prager claims that the US is now engaged in a "second civil war," a "culture war" over fundamental moral values. He asserts that this fissure is not only present within the United States, but reflects a growing global rift that divides the United States from other industrialized societies. He charges that many powerful American institutions are dominated by "the secular left" (among which he includes universities, trial lawyers, labor unions, the ACLU, and most large newspapers and television networks). These institutions, according to Prager, attack or misrepresent the greatness of the American Judeo-Christian tradition, instead promoting the "European" philosophy of secular humanism, with calamatous implications for the future of human civilization. Prager accuses Western Europe ("a civilization in decline") and Canada of suffering from "a broken moral compass." He charges that the dominance of leftist thought in those countries has turned their societies into "moral wastelands." Prager argues for "American exceptionalism," the position that "world opinion" or the United Nations should not dictate American moral judgments and that the United States may have a better take on morality -- such as its often lonely defense of Israel and Taiwan. In his view, the United States has developed a unique set of Judeo-Christian values which he describes as "the finest set of values to guide the lives of both individuals and societies." Prager argues that most contemporary social and political crises stem from the absence of a normative system of "ethical monotheism." He marshalls these arguments in defense of the the United States' initiative in the War in Iraq which he argues is another example of Americans dying in order to bring liberty to others -- as in Korea and Europe before. Prager is a Jew -- "one of the three most interesting minds in American Jewish life according to New York's "Jewish Week" -- who is both a leader in Jewish life and an outspoken supporter of the conservative Christian movement in the US. In particular, he favors the ethical beliefs and worldview of the "Evangelical" Protestant community and often allies himself with "born again" Christians in political matters. While advocating Judeo-Christian values, Prager is often critical of Jewish or Christian organizations that do not share his interpretation of those values, such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the National Council of Churches. Prager has taken up several causes to preserve references to God and the Ten Commandments in public facilities such as schools, parks, and courthouses. In 2004, he spearheaded an unsuccessful movement to protect the official seal of the County of Los Angeles from being redesigned in such a way as to remove a small Christian cross from its imagery after the ACLU complained that the cross on the official seal implied government endorsement of religion, in violation of the US Constitution.

Lectures and Writings

He has lectured in almost every Jewish community in North America, at major business conclaves, to chapters of the YPO (Young Presidents Organization) around the world, and at churches and other Christian institutions. In June, 2005, The American Jewish Press Association awarded him First Prize for Excellence in Commentary. He is currently writing his fifth book, The Case for Judeo-Christian Values. He is devoting many of his syndicated columns in 2005 to making that case.

Bibliography

Prager writes for the Sunday Los Angeles Times "current" section and writes a weekly column published in newspapers and online at Townhall.com and elsewhere. He is also the author of several books:
- Nine Questions People ask about Judaism (with Joseph Telushkin)
- Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (with Joseph Telushkin)
- Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual
- Think A Second Time (a collection of 44 essays on 40 topics)

External links

- [http://www.dennisprager.com/ dennisprager.com] Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis

William Bennett

William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or "Drug Czar") under George H. W. Bush. Bennett was born in Brooklyn, New York. After moving to Washington, DC, he attended Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from Williams College, and went on to get a PhD from the University of Texas in Political Philosophy. He also has a law degree from Harvard Law School. From 1976 to 1981, he was the executive director of the National Humanities Center, a private research facility in North Carolina. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to head the National Endowment for the Humanities, where he served until Reagan appointed him Secretary of Education in 1985. Bennett resigned from this post in 1988 and, later that year, was appointed to the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by President Bush. He was confirmed by the Senate in a 97-2 vote. Long active in United States Republican Party politics, he is now an author, speaker, and host of the weekday radio program Morning in America. Bennett and his wife, Elayne, have two sons, John and Joseph.

Political Viewpoints

Bennett tends to take a conservative position on affirmative action, school vouchers, curriculum reform, and religion in education. As Education Secretary, he asked colleges to better enforce drug laws, supported a classical education rooted in Western culture, and derided multicultural courses. He frequently criticized schools for low standards. Bennett has tangled with the educational establishment (which he dubbed "the blob" or bloated educational bureaucracy) over the following reform measures, which he espoused:
- Competency testing for teachers
- Opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from "schools of education"
- Performance-based pay
- Holding educators accountable for how much children learn
- An end to tenure
- A national examination to find out exactly how much our children know
- Parental choice of schools [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0671797190/ref=sib_fs_pop/102-1238761-6183333?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S014&checkSum=UbyI1K8PemRb%2BNvVBOSWZTfDsmrcHrudWdK6ZgGHXw8%3D#reader-page (The De-Valuing Of America, page 44)] Bennett is a staunch supporter of the War on Drugs and has been criticized for his extreme views on the issue. On a television show, he said that a viewer's suggestion of beheading drug dealers would be 'morally plausible'. Bennett is a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998 PNAC Letter sent to President Bill Clinton urging Clinton to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power. He is also a member of the Heritage Foundation.

Books

Bennett's best-known written work may be The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (1993), which he edited; he has also authored and edited ten other books, including The Children’s Book of Virtues and The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals (1998). Other books:
- Body Count: Moral Poverty...and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs (1996)
- The De-Valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (1992)
- Moral Compass: Stories for a Life's Journey (1995)
- Our Sacred Honor (1997, compilation of writings by founding fathers)
- Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism (2003)

Controversies

Gambling

In 2003, it became widely known that Bennett was a high-stakes gambler who reportedly had lost millions of dollars in Las Vegas. As a Catholic, Bennett was not prohibited from gambling, but some felt it conflicted with his public image as a leading voice for conservative morals. Bennett was never accused of nor admitted to having a "problem" with gambling and has maintained that his habit did not put himself or his family in any financial jeopardy. After Bennett's gambling habit became public knowledge, Bennett did say that he did not believe that his habit set a good example, and now claims to have quit gambling for good.

Controversial Radio Show Comment

On September 28, 2005, in a discussion on Bennett's Morning in America radio show, Bennett made remarks that have since touched off a debate about race, crime and abortion. A caller to the show proposed the idea that the Social Security system might be solvent today if abortion hadn't been permitted following the Roe v. Wade decision. The following is a transcript of the conversation: :CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't—never touches this at all. :BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens? :CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue. :BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as—abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No. :CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah. :BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both—you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well— :CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate. :BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. [http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006 Transcript and recording of conversation] Subsequently, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as well as civil rights groups, condemned Bennett's statements and demanded an apology. President George W. Bush called Bennett's statements "not appropriate" in a statement read by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01bennett.html] Bennett has responded to the criticism, later issuing a statement to clarify his position. He said, in part: :A thought experiment about public policy, on national radio, should not have received the condemnations it has. Anyone paying attention to this debate should be offended by those who have selectively quoted me, distorted my meaning, and taken out of context the dialogue I engaged in this week. Such distortions from 'leaders' of organizations and parties is a disgrace not only to the organizations and institutions they serve, but to the First Amendment. (Click here [http://www.bennettmornings.com/agnosticchart?charttype=minichart&chartID=11&formatID=1&size=3&useMiniChartID=true&destinationpage=/pg/jsp/general/featured.jsp#0] for Bennett’s full statement.)

Trivia

While a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Texas, Bennett, then a rock and roll fan, was set up on a blind date with Janis Joplin, who was then at the height of her singing career. According to People magazine, the date "must surely rank as one of the least likely blind dates of all time." When asked what he and Janis did on their date, Bennett joked, "Hey, a gentleman doesn't tell."

External links

- [http://www.bennettmornings.com Morning in America] Bennett, William Bennett, William Bennett, William Bennett, William Bennett, William

Dennis Prager

Lectures and Writings

Bibliography

External links

- [http://www.dennisprager.com/ dennisprager.com] Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis Prager, Dennis

Hugh Hewitt

Books

External link

- [http://www.hughhewitt.com/ HughHewitt.com] Hewitt, Hugh Hewitt, Hugh

Paid programming

Infomercials are television commercials that run as long as a typical television program (roughly thirty minutes or an hour). Infomercials, also known as paid programming (or teleshopping in Europe), are normally shown outside of peak hours, such as late at night or early in the morning. The word infomercial is a portmanteau which is formed by combining "information" and "commercial". As in any other form of advertisement, the content is a commercial message designed to represent the viewpoints and serve the interest of the sponsor. Infomercials are often made to closely resemble actual television programming, usually talk shows, with minimal acknowledgement that the program is actually an advertisement. An infomercial is designed to solicit a direct response which is specific and quantifiable and is therefore a form of direct response marketing (not to be confused with direct marketing). The delivery of the response is direct between the viewer and the advertiser. Normally commercials do not solicit a direct response from the viewer, but instead try to brand their product in the market place. Infomercials may make use of flashy catchphrases, repetition of basic ideas, and the use of esteemed scientist-like characters or celebrities. Well known infomercial personalities include: Cher, George Foreman (with the George Foreman Grill), Mike Levey, Ron Popeil, Kevin Trudeau, Chef Tony and Tony Robbins. Because of the nature of infomercials, consumer advocates recommend careful investigation of the claims made on infomercials, including the company behind the product, before purchasing the featured products.

History

Infomercials proliferated in the United States after 1984 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) eliminated regulations, which were established in the 1950s and 1960s, on the commercial content of television. Much of their early development can be attributed to business partners Edward Valenti and Barry Beecher, who developed the format to sell the Ginsu Knife. On occasion infomercials have been used for election campaigns. Most notably was that of former President of the United States candidate, Ross Perot, when he introduced his 1996 candidacy with running mate,