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Brian Rohrbough (c. 1961) was the 2008 vice presidential candidate of America's Independent Party in the 2008 United States presidential election, running on the ticket with presidential candidate Alan Keyes.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Rohrbough was raised in Littleton, Colorado.

Career[link]

Rohrbough dropped out of high school at age 16 and later founded a car stereo business in Englewood, Colorado. His son, Daniel, was the second murder victim in the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, being wounded by Eric Harris, then fatally shot in the back by Dylan Klebold. This event profoundly affected Rohrbough's life. Afterward, he led efforts to examine the sociological reasons for this event, ultimately concluding that America's so-called "culture of death", specifically legalized abortion, and the removal of all vestiges of religion from public school classrooms, were root causes. Since then he has become involved in the anti-abortion movement, and served as president of Colorado Right to Life.

Today he is the president of the splinter anti-abortion group American Right to Life. This local Colorado organization is dedicated to prohibiting abortion. He has appeared on numerous local and national television programs across the country.^[1]

2008 vice presidential campaign[link]

In August 2008, America's Independent Party nominated Rohrbough to its first-ever presidential ticket. He was the running mate of Alan Keyes, a diplomat from Maryland who unsuccessfully sought the nominations of the Republican Party and Constitution Party before creating a new third party to run on. Like Keyes, Rohrbough is heavily conservative and believes strongly that ending abortion is of the most importance.

America's Independent Party was on the ballot in only two states: Florida, and Colorado. The Keyes/Rohrbough ticket also appeared on the California ballot as the nominees of the American Independent Party.^[2]

Rohrbough and the America's Independent Party presidential ticket received a total of 47,694 votes nationwide.^[3]

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2008)

External links[link]

• AIP Nominates Brian Rohrbough for VP
• American Right to Life Official Website
• Alan Keyes for President

Michael Anthony Peroutka (born 1952) is a Maryland lawyer, the founder of the Institute on the Constitution. He once held a position in the United States Department of Health and Human Services and was the Constitution Party candidate for president in 2004. He is co-host of The American View radio program.

Peroutka was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a graduate of Loyola College in Maryland and the University of Baltimore School of Law. He was the Chairman of the Constitution Party of Maryland and a member of the Executive Committee of the Constitution Party National Committee.

2004 presidential campaign[link]

In the United States presidential election, 2004, he was the Constitution Party candidate. His campaign theme was "God, Family, Republic" and he emphasized the Bible, the traditional family, and the need for constitutionally limited government. His running mate was independent Baptist minister Chuck Baldwin. He gained support from many paleoconservatives, and was also endorsed by the America First Party and Alaskan Independence Party.^[1] Peroutka was also endorsed by the League of the South and supported by a group called "Southerners for Peroutka".^[2] Peroutka accepted the endorsement from the League at their 2004 national convention. Radio host Alex Jones stated he would be voting for Peroutka.^[3]

He appeared on the White Nationalist ^[4] radio show, The Political Cesspool to promote his campaign, describing it as a "Christian/Constitutionalist radio program" and "a great blessing to our cause".^[5]

Political commentator Pat Buchanan stated on the September 7, 2004 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews, "There is a chance I would vote for Peroutka."^[6] The November 8, 2004 issue of The American Conservative contained endorsements by Taki Theodoracopulos^[7] and Howard Phillips^[8] (the latter having founded the party Peroutka represented). He was also endorsed by the late Samuel T. Francis.^[9] Peroutka received just over one-tenth of one percent of the national popular vote, finishing fifth nationally with just under 150,000 votes. This was a showing similar to previous Constitution Party candidacies of Howard Phillips - however, it was the only third party to increase its share of the vote in 2004.

Political positions[link]

Peroutka emphasizes the Bible and America's Christian heritage. He opposes abortion without exception. He opposes a Federal Marriage Amendment, believing the federal government should not be granted jurisdiction over marriage^{[citation needed]}. He advocates for free market capitalism. He supports the right to keep and bear arms and strongly opposes the war in Iraq, calling it ungodly, immoral, and unconstitutional.^[10] He supports the right to homeschool and believes the federal government should not regulate or fund education.

In 2006, he voted in favor of disaffiliating the Independent American Party of Nevada from the Constitution Party.^[11] In 2012, the Montgomery Advertiser reported that he was the single-biggest donor to Roy Moore's 2012 campaign for the Alabama Supreme Court, having contributed $50,000 of the total $78,000 received by Moore until December 31, 2011.^[12]

Split from the National Constitution Party[link]

In 2006, the Maryland Constitution Party disaffiliated from the national party along with other state parties following a schism at the national party's 2006 convention, in which it failed to disaffiliate the Nevada party despite its chairman and gubernatorial candidate's support for legal abortion in some cases. Peroutka stated "At this point I could not, in good faith, represent the Constitution Party nor endorse any of its candidates. Unless serious changes occur, I could not run for President in 2008." ^[13]

Peroutka's supporters, however, collected enough signatures to get his name approved as a write-in candidate in Georgia for the 2008 presidential election.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peroutka for President 2004
• Michael Peroutka at Politics1
• Michael Peroutka at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview on NOW

John Taylor Gatto^[1] (born December 15, 1935^[2]) is a retired American school teacher with nearly 30 years experience in the classroom, and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling, of the perceived divide between the teen years and adulthood, and of what he characterizes as the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions.

Biography[link]

Gatto was born in the Pittsburgh-area steel town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. In his youth he attended public schools throughout the Pittsburgh Metro Area including Swissvale, Monongahela, and Uniontown as well as a Catholic boarding school in Latrobe. He did undergraduate work at Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia, then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Following army service he did graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell.

He worked as a writer and held several odd jobs before borrowing his roommate's license to investigate teaching. Gatto also ran for the New York State Senate, 29th District in 1985 and 1988 as a member of the Conservative Party of New York against incumbent David Paterson.^[3] He was named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991.^[4] In 1991, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement, titled I Quit, I Think, to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, saying that he no longer wished to "hurt kids to make a living." He then began a public speaking and writing career, and has received several awards from libertarian organizations, including the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for Excellence in Advancement of Educational Freedom in 1997.

He promotes homeschooling, and specifically unschooling. Wade A. Carpenter, associate professor of education at Berry College, has called his books "scathing" and "one-sided and hyperbolic, [but] not inaccurate"^[5] and describes himself as in agreement with Gatto.^[6]

Gatto is currently working on a 3-part documentary about compulsory schooling, titled The Fourth Purpose. He says he was inspired by Ken Burns's Civil War.^[7]

Main thesis[link]

What does the school do with the children? Gatto states the following assertions in "Dumbing Us Down":

1. It makes the children confused. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials that programming is similar to the television, it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again.
2. It teaches them to accept their class affiliation.
3. It makes them indifferent.
4. It makes them emotionally dependent.
5. It makes them intellectually dependent.
6. It teaches them a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts (provisional self-esteem).
7. It makes it clear to them that they cannot hide, because they are always supervised.^[8]

Bibliography[link]

• Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992).
• The Exhausted School (1993).
• A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling (2000). ISBN 1-893163-21-0
• The Underground History of American Education (2001). (Complete Text online)
• Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling (2008). ISBN 0-86571-631-5
• 'Against School' (2001) (Complete Text Online)

See also[link]

• Critical pedagogy
• Deschooling Society (book by Ivan Illich)
• Hidden curriculum
• How Children Fail (book by John Holt)
• Total institution

Other critics of public education:

• Zachariah Montgomery
• Richard Grant White

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Kinza Academy, Homeschooling with the Classics. Gatto is on the Advisory Board.
• Collection of essays Gatto is a regular columnist for The Link Homeschool Newspaper
• Transcript of radio interview with Jerry Brown
• Gatto's November 2007 visit to Netherlands: audio, video and articles
• Book reviews by Layla AR
• The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto (complete download)

Writings and lectures[link]

• "Against School" – originally published in Harper's Magazine, September 2003
• "The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher" – originally published in Whole Earth Review, Fall 1991
• A set of quotes from Gatto and links to original essays
• "Institutional Schooling Must Be Destroyed"
• "The Tyranny Of Compulsory Schooling"
• "The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?", article published by Diablo Valley School
• "Why Schools Don't Educate - Teacher of the Year acceptance speech"
• "A Short Angry History of American Forced Schooling"
• Book reviews by Layla AR
• Everything We Think About Schooling Is Wrong! – Interview with Gatto (PDF file download)
• "Against School" – originally published in Harper's Magazine, September 2003
• A set of quotes from Gatto and links to original essays

Multimedia[link]

• Bartleby Project 2010 on YouTube
• 4th Purpose Promo – Trailer for The Fourth Purpose
• John Gatto Keynote Talks - Video: Five complete keynote talks by John Gatto (2004–2010)
• Altruists.org – download audio files of some of Gatto's talks
• Video of Gatto interview, broken into topic sections
• Speech at a home schooling Conference by Radio for Peace (MP3)
• The Lew Rockwell Show, Aug 25, 2010
• Collection of Gatto Files, mainly MP3s

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer (born October 3, 1941) is an evangelical Christian pastor, teacher and author. He is currently the senior pastor of Moody Church, in Chicago, Illinois.

Career[link]

Dr. Lutzer served as senior pastor of Edgewater Baptist Church, Chicago, from 1971 to 1977. During that time he completed an M.A. in Philosophy from Loyola University Chicago. He then entered the PhD program at Loyola to pursue a doctorate in Philosophy.^[1] In subsequent years, Lutzer has received two honorary doctorates, an LL.D. from Simon Greenleaf School of Law and a Doctor of Divinity from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary.^[2]

The Moody Church[link]

Since January 1980, Lutzer has been the senior pastor of Moody Church, in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. The church and its ministries have grown significantly under his leadership, leading to the construction of a new Christian Life Center to complement the existing 75-year-old building.^[3]

Radio[link]

Dr. Lutzer is the speaker on three radio broadcasts: "Songs in the Night," "Running to Win" and "The Moody Church Hour." These broadcasts are heard on radio stations across the United States and across the world through the Internet. Sunday morning services at the church are streamed live, worldwide, through the church's website.^[4] Lutzer speaks internationally at churches, conferences and retreats.

Author[link]

Dr. Lutzer has authored more than 30 books, including Hitler’s Cross, which won a Gold Medallion award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and the bestselling One Minute After You Die: A Preview of Your Final Destination. More recently, Lutzer’s book critiquing Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, entitled The Da Vinci Deception, was featured on national broadcasts in both secular and Christian markets.^[5]

Legal Issue[link]

In a decision of December 30, 2010, Erwin Lutzer was found liable by the Illinois Appellate Court, which awarded the plaintiff, Richard Duncan (a former pastor of The Moody Church who had resigned in 1992), the sum of $276, 306 in damages [1]. The complaint against Pastor Lutzer claimed invasion of privacy. It was filed subsequent to Pastor Lutzer having sent a number of personal documents relating to Duncan’s alleged marital and personal problems to the senior clergy of the plaintiff’s new church.

Works[link]

• One Minute After You Die: A Preview of Your Final Destination, ISBN 0-8024-6322-3
• The Da Vinci Deception, ISBN 0-8423-8430-8
• Jesus, Lover of a Woman’s Soul (with Rebecca Lutzer), ISBN 0-8423-8426-X
• Christ Among Other gods, ISBN 0-8024-1649-7
• How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit, ISBN 1-56476-331-5
• Hitler’s Cross, ISBN 0-8024-3583-1
• The Doctrines that Divide, ISBN 0-8254-3165-4
• Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible, ISBN 0-8024-8439-5
• The Vanishing Power Of Death : Conquering Your Greatest Fear, ISBN 0-8024-0945-8
• The Truth About Same-sex Marriage : 6 Things You Need To Know About What's Really At Stake, ISBN 1-59644-160-7
• Where Was God? : Answers to Tough Questions About God And Natural Disasters, ISBN 1-4143-1144-3
• Is God on America's Side?: The Surprising Answer and Why it Matters During This Election Season, ISBN 0-8024-8951-6
• Oprah, Miracles, and the New Earth : A Critique, ISBN 0-8024-8953-2

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer broadcast and video archives
• Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer audio archives
• Erwin Lutzer’s homepage