Radio, Feb. 18: America after liberalism

Update after 2/18 show: Here's more on Star Parker, author of "Uncle Sam's Plantation." Gianna Jessen's dramatic story is at giannajessen.com. "Gianna:Aborted and Lived to Tell About It" is published by Focus on the Family. Terri Rayburn's work is detailed at fund4colorado.org. That radical school plan is at skillscommission.org.

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------

After liberalism has run its course, which I believe is already happening, what will America be? That phrase, "America after liberalism," can mean one of two things.

Either it describes a society that is demoralized, declining, and exhausted as a result of embracing false ideals - much like Europe today. Or it foresees an America on the road to renewal after rejecting the liberal illusion and rededicating ourselves to the nation's founding principles.

Which will it be? That's up to us. As liberalism crashes and burns, we must be ready with a conservative vision of liberty and order to rise in its place. Otherwise we'll see the New World pulled back into the grip of the Old, erasing four centuries of ever greater independence.

This demands thinking-about by conservatives - hard thinking to prepare us for determined action. Our Backbone program every Sunday is part of that. The goal is to bring you not just talk radio but "think radio" - conversation with depth and truth. We'll do it again on the Feb. 18 show...

** Michael Reagan talks with me about the sources of his father's greatness, as Presidents' Day points our attention to the birthdays of Washington (Feb. 22), Lincoln (Feb. 12), and Ronald Reagan (Feb. 6).

** Star Parker, Los Angeles welfare mom turned black conservative commentator, makes her first visit to Backbone Colorado USA.

** Gianna Jessen, who electrified the Colorado House last year with her testimony as an aborted baby who grew up to be a talented singer, joins me as well.

** Plus an update on the Hollywood Left from our man in showbiz, Joseph C. Phillips, and a storm warning for parents and taxpayers from education watchdog Terri Rayburn.

If you don't plan your future, someone else will plan it for you. That is true both for our personal lives, and for our responsibility together as free citizens. Backbone Radio invites you help us prepare for America after liberalism. Please be listening on Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Great guests, week after week

Backbone Radio proudly engages a statewide and national audience each Sunday from the moral high ground of “America without apologies, America as it was meant to be, America with steel in her spine.” These were some of our hundreds of guests in 2006, the program’s third year: Sean Allen Conservative Student Activist

Uri Bar-Ner Israeli Ambassador

Bob Beauprez Candidate for Governor

Bill Becker Maine Heritage Policy Center

Waldo Benavidez Secure Borders Advocate

Bill Bennett Former Education Secretary

Michael Bennet Denver School Supt.

Dana Berlener Institute for Justice

Wendell Cox Market transportation expert

Nonie Darwish Arabs for Israel

Brian Davidson CU Regent Candidate

Neil Dobro Action Israel

Mark Earley Prison Fellowship

Chris Edwards Cato Institute

Eric Egland Author, Win in Iraq

Humberto Fontova Anti-Castro author

Leondray Gholston Chairman, Black Republicans

Ken Gordon Senate Majority Leader

Douglas Gresham C.S. Lewis’s stepson

Douglas Groothuis Denver Seminary

John Harpole School voucher donor

James Humes Speechwriter to 5 presidents

Bishop Harry Jackson Black Contract with America

BJ Jackson Iraq disabled veterans leader

Rosemary Jenks Numbers USA

Charles Kesler Editor, Claremont Review

Al Knight Denver Post

Dave Kopel 2nd Amendment expert

Thomas Krannawitter Lincoln biographer

Helen Krieble Philanthropist

Mark Krikorian Center Immigration Studies

Marlo Lewis Global warming expert

Tom Lucero CU Regent

Evan Maloney Academic freedom filmmaker

Andy McElhany Senate Minority Leader

Kevin Miller Vanguard Forum

Bill Moloney Education Commissioner

Terrence Moore Charter school headmaster

Tom Noel Colorado historian

James Nyondo Evangelist & Togoland prince

Randal O’Toole Smart growth expert

Frances Owens First Lady of Colorado

Roger Pielke CSU climate scientist

Daniel Pipes Middle East Forum

Jared Polis State Board of Education

Ramesh Ponnuru National Review

Dennis Prager Syndicated talk show host

Connie Pratt Pro-life leader

Joel Rosenberg Author, The Last Jihad

Herb Rubenstein Candidate for Congress

Brad Shipp Students Academic Freedom

Mark Smith Author, Take Back the Court

Jim Spencer Denver Post

Lola Spradley Candidate for Lt. Governor

Tom Tancredo Congressman, R-CO

Tom Tillapaugh Denver Street School

Curt Weldon Congressman, R-PA

Radio, Feb. 11: Lincoln stands tall

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, DenverTo listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Statesmen are scarce, whether you look at Washington or our elected leaders here in Colorado. President Bush has shown moments of greatness but little consistency. The US Senate is an embarrassment much of the time, no matter which party is in power. Bill Ritter has fumbled repeatedly on his first series of downs. All the White House contenders for 2008 have their flaws.

So it's not just for historical interest, but for an example much needed today, that Americans should honor the statesmanship, genius, and nobility of Abraham Lincoln at this time each year. We'll do so this Sunday on "Backbone Radio with John Andrews," mindful of his birth 198 years ago on Feb. 12. I hope you will join me, Joshua Sharf, and Matt Dunn for the program.

** Tom Krannawitter, Hillsdale College professor and Claremont Institute fellow, will talk about his new book, "Vindicating Lincoln." We'll learn why conservatives should revere the Great Emancipator (sadly, not all do).

** Angelo Codevilla, also of the Claremont Institute, was an early voice warning that we might lose the peace in Iraq, after having won the war. His reports on our show are always bracing, if somber.

** Bishop Harry Jackson eloquently advocates the "Black Contract with America on Moral Values," about which I wrote recently. You'll enjoy his common-sense thoughts on Black History Month.

** Plus an update on Colorado issues from state senators Brandon Schaffer (D) and Dave Schultheis (R), as well as our favorite anti-preppy from the Rocky Mountain News back pages, Mike Littwin.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, Feb. 4: Government is the problem

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Government is not the solution; government is the problem. So warned Ronald Reagan as he took office in 1981 at a time of drift and demoralization for America. His words are on my mind as we head into another weekend radio show and look to the Gipper's birthday next Tuesday, Feb. 6.

Did Reagan mean we don't need a strong and well-respected civil authority to protect individual rights, uphold the rule of law, and defend the peace against domestic predators and foreign enemies? Of course not. We very much need that, and without it we'd not be enjoying what our Constitution calls the "blessings of liberty" in this country today.

But what I believe the late President saw back then (a quarter-century ago, can it already be that long?), and what is even more pronounced in the nation today, is the ill effect of government exceeding its limits to the point where strength sinks under bloat and respect sours into distrust. That's what he meant by "the problem."

Reagan with his revolution, heroically begun but never completed, helped turn us back to the Constitution (and underlying it, the Declaration of Independence) as sources of a true "solution" for national decline. It is now for us in a new century and facing new threats abroad, new mutations of collectivism at home, to push his revolution forward with reliance on those same timeless sources.

My Denver Post column for the great man's birthday is called "Reagan was Right: We're Overgoverned." It will be available on this website starting Saturday morning. But when it's published, I will be in the East at a national conservative conference, far from the KNUS microphone.

** Former State Treasurer Mark Hillman will host Backbone Radio for me on Sunday the 4th, ably backed by Matt Dunn and (welcome back, where ya been) Beth Skinner.

** Guests will include Republican campaign attorney Scott Gessler on such issues as the nutty ethics amendment and the 527 mess... State Sen. Shawn Mitchell with the latest on Ritter's leftward lunge down at the Capitol... and I will call in with a report from that right-wing conspiracy event we're attending.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

Radio, Jan. 28: A Nation of Quitters?

Join us on radio every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denverand now also on 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs To listen online from anywhere, click 710knus.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sunni insurgency in Iraq, writes Nibras Kazimi in the New York Sun, "is being slowly, and surely, defeated. The average insurgent today feels demoralized, disillusioned, and hunted."

But meanwhile at home, as Daniel Henninger warns in the Wall Street Journal, "The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism."

Has America become a nation of quitters? Will Osama and Ahmadinejad laugh last? Will the coming decade bring us the global disaster that would have occurred after 1938 if appeasement in the mold of Chamberlain and Lindbergh had prevailed over the warrior spirit of Churchill and FDR?

This Sunday on "Backbone Radio with John Andrews," I'll discuss those concerns with Joshua Sharf and Krista Kafer -- plus your phone calls. There is no more important issue before us right now. None!

** We'll also have a great lineup of guests to take you behind the headlines and back to first principles. Grover Norquist will brief us on the tax-hiking plans of Democrats (and some Republicans) in Congress. Brian Rohrbough, Columbine dad whose pro-life eloquence rocked Katie Couric's newsroom, recounts the abortion holocaust in America since January 22, 1973.

** Bob Chitester, a confidant of the late Milton Friedman, talks about his TV biography of the great economist that airs tomorrow. State Sen. Shawn Mitchell explains what's wrong with the growing move to dump the Electoral College in electing presidents. Joseph D'Souza reports on stirrings of freedom for India's "untouchable" class, the long-oppressed Dalits.

Spin the dial, surf the net, troll through the weekdays -- you just won't find anything else like Backbone Radio. Please be part of our show this weekend by tuning in at 5pm Sunday. (No football that day, either.)

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS