I don’t really use this one often. It’s too political and I have awoke from that particular nightmare. People need to realize there are bigger issues and thoughts than policies and legislation. Yeah, seriously, Dad.
Since I, unlike the person above, do not always believe I am right–even when wrong–I have driven away from this blog. It will stay up, though I don’t know how long WordPress will leave it if I don’t touch it. I have a new blog that will actually get posts, daily, and they will be relatively objective at the core. In other words, it is honestly dealing with things that we all would agree are Reality.
So long.
Oh, and it’s at www.mashmouthis.blogspot.com.
Wow. It has been a very long time since I have peeked in here. My apologies…since quitting Facebook, I didn’t wish to vent much at all, preferring to focus on self-improvement through the Giver of Breath.
Look, here is the flavor of today: It seems to me that America has grown fat and happy (as we watch “The Biggest Loser” on the DVR) in many many ways.
Happiness now is doing what you want, when you want it. Thanks to a long-established free-market, vast prosperity reigns.
Happiness now is eating whatever ethnic food you prefer, when you want it. This is a good symptom of the ‘melting-pot’ of America; however, we forgot when to say when.
Happiness now is buying whatever you want, when you want it. Forget the time it may take–you deserve it today. In fact, it could probably be produced more cheaply in China (and Walmart is open 24 hours).
This ‘happiness’ is the most immoral at its core. Why? The moment that value, desires, things, became something in our life that we were entitled to–not a commodity and a tool to be used, but a birthright–America was broken. Before America broke, however, the culture broke; society broke, but the break was internal. Individuals in America broke–in their souls. People needed their desires met, because they deserved it.
When desire becomes entitlement, they have become their own god.
Which leads me to ponder a question: how do gods stay safe AND free?
He’s Not Jimmy Carter
By Quin Hillyer on 9.3.09 @ 6:09AM
Conservatives are taking too much solace in the precipitous drop in Barack Obama’s approval ratings, and too many of us are overconfident that his administration is merely a replay of the hapless presidency of Jimmy Carter that was easily swept out in a landslide election.
Today’s situation is far different, far more conducive to our political adversary’s political power, than that which faced Carter. And Obama is an entirely different breed of cat. He’s more ruthless, more tactically savvy, and has far more dangerous objectives. A drop in his poll ratings isn’t as serious a setback for him as similar occurrences were for the peanut farmer from Plains.
In short, conservatives should beware. The political battle we’re in is far more difficult than any the conservative movement has ever faced. It will take all our energy and all our smarts to win it.
First, consider the differences in political circumstances between Obama and Carter. Unlike Carter, Obama does not face a Kennedy-led left wing of his party that despises him. Unlike Carter, Obama did not take office by an incredibly slim majority vote so close that a few thousands votes in two states would have swung the whole election. Unlike Carter, Obama took office in the middle of a crisis he could blame on his predecessor and coming off an unpopular war that he could blame almost entirely on the Republican Party. On the right, Carter faced a conservative movement (even if not a Republican Party) unified and energized by an inspirational leader — but no similar, single spokesman today galvanizes conservatives like Ronald Reagan did then. Carter also did not have a nationwide movement kept together by a tool like the Internet, and did not have billionaires behind his general aims the way Obama has George Soros.
Finally, Obama has the advantage of a more ethnically diverse nation that has far less of a common culture and less of a common appreciation of shared socio-political history and values. Why is that an advantage? Because it gives him more leeway to make outlandish claims, and still have huge pluralities believe him, than Carter could ever hope for.
More important than all that, though, is that Obama’s personal skills, aims, and training are like nothing we have ever seen before in the White House. Every other president before him has intended at most to achieve change within the American political system. Obama wants to change the system itself. He is a radical’s radical, with an authoritarian impulse. His Alinskyite training means that social unrest doesn’t unnerve him; it plays right into his hands. Social unrest is both his modus operandi and his mid-term goal. The more unrest, the greater the crisis; the greater the crisis, the more excuse he has to use and consolidate central power in order to completely remake society.
And unlike Carter or most other Democratic presidential nominees of the past 45 years, Obama has tremendous oratorical skills. Sure, Bill Clinton could please lots of audience members with small promises, but he did not possess half the ability to inspire people (however misguidedly) that Obama does. Obama has the talent to raise demagoguery to an art form.
Already we see a cult of personality around Obama, one deliberately encouraged by the Obama political operation. Already we see him push for centralizing, fascistic economic powers. Already we see him creating “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the regular military, complete with uniformed youths (and even senior citizens) formed into “cadres.” And in order to make AmeriCorps less answerable to the public, Obama fired the Inspector General trying to blow the whistle on nefarious AmeriCorps activities. Now he is using AmeriCorps and the National Endowment for the Arts to politically agitate for his “recovery agenda.”
And that’s not to mention the Big Brother-like data-mining and reporting of “casual conversations” to a White House website, or the creepy address to all the nation’s school children — or the continued public trashing, by the permanent Obama campaign known as Organizing For America, of ordinary citizen protesters as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists.”
Obama also is politicizing the Census; giving contracts to ACORN; letting a recognized hate group like the New Black Panthers go free; undermining the CIA at every turn, radicalizing the Supreme Court; re-orienting the civil rights division of the Justice Department; appointing more “czars” than anybody can keep track of and who, unlike Cabinet members, do not answer to Congress; resisting transparency on TARP bailout funds; refusing to enforce financial reporting requirements on union political organizers; and doing all sorts of other things designed, as are the items above, to consolidate power, tilt the deck, and rig the political rules in his favor for the long haul.
In foreign affairs, his radicalism is even more apparent. He keeps undermining allies while embracing enemies. He deliberately undercut the brave protesters in Iran. He stubbornly continues to punish Honduras and its citizens, via economic and travel sanctions, because Honduras actually followed its own Constitution in removing a harshly anti-American president from office — when he should have been rewarding Honduras for its commitment to the rule of law. Yet while he punishes friendly Hondurans, he refuses to punish radical leftist Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa when Correa’s government tries to shake down an American company for $27 billion. It’s all very bizarre. One wonders what exactly his agenda is. But it’s clearly something the likes of which we’ve never seen. Again, the comparison with Carter’s foreign policy is telling. Carter’s was full of woolly-minded, pie-in-the-sky idealism, but it didn’t deliberately mollycoddle sworn enemies. Obama’s, on the other hand, portrays Obama to the world as if Obama himself is more admirable than the nation he supposedly represents — a nation for which he continually apologizes. This attempt, so far quite successful, to garner personal, worldwide glorification is another gambit for power. Again, it makes him nobody for domestic political adversaries to trifle with. It gives him tools never enjoyed by the Jimmy Carter who was burned in effigy by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his pals in 1979 and 1980.
To defeat Obama’s radicalism will take plenty of political savvy on the right. Until the 2010 elections, discontent should simmer, but not boil over. Civil unrest will not win the day; it will only help him. The one, and perhaps only, opportunity to stop his juggernaut will be in those mid-term elections. Every bit of conservatives’ efforts should be directed at building a massive voter turnout to defeat Obama’s leftist allies in 2010. The TEA parties and town hall protests and all the rest should be aimed at building a political infrastructure and political arguments sufficient to win those elections. The energy of conservatives should climax then and only then. Anything premature, anything over the top, will allow Obama to more effectively mobilize his own troops in the supposed name of order and stability.
Finally, it will help Obama that, probably by design, the bulk of the “stimulus” funds remain unspent. What will happen is that at just the right time, those funds will spur a false recovery — a “recovery” hailed by the establishment media as proof of Obama’s wisdom. The recovery won’t last, because it won’t be real. But that won’t matter. Timed just right, it will allow Obama to claim the economic high road — something Jimmy Carter never was able to claim. Relieved Americans who are apolitical could easily be swayed to “stay the course,” just as Americans stayed the course with Ronald Reagan in 1982. But Reagan’s course led to greater freedom; if Obama’s course is stayed and he consolidates power in 2010, the diminution of freedom may be well-nigh irreversible.
In short, the wonderful conservative success in August should not hide the reality that our backs are still against the wall. Obama still owns the upper hand. If we make any major mistake, he will use that hand as a fist to smash the conservative movement to bits. Clear-eyed about this possibility, conservatives must keep fighting. Uphill. Against the wind. And without a Reagan to lead us.
…but our President has already ‘appointed’ over two dozen. Since Czars are not approved by or answer to Congress–nor to you or me–it’d be a good thing to find out who they are right? (In the President’s defense, some of these people were appointed prior to January 2009. The principle remains the same, however.)
Afghanistan Czar – Richard Holbrooke
AIDS Czar – Jeffrey Crowley
Auto Recovery Czar – Ed Montgomery
Border Czar – Alan Bersin
California Water Czar – David J. Hayes
Car Czar – Ron Bloom
Central Region Czar – Dennis Ross
Climate Czar – Todd Stern
Domestic Violence Czar – Lynn Rosenthal
Drug Czar – Gil Kerlikowske
Economic Czar – Paul Volcker
Energy and Environment Czar – Carol Browner
Government Performance Czar – Jeffrey Zients
Great Lakes Czar – Cameron Davis
Guantanamo Closure Czar – Daniel Fried
Health Czar – Nancy-Ann DeParle
Information Czar – Vivek Kundra
Intelligence Czar – Dennis Blair
Mideast Peace Czar – George Mitchell
Pay Czar – Kenneth R. Feinberg
Stimulus Accountability Czar – Earl Devaney
Sudan Czar – J. Scott Gration
TARP Czar – Herb Allison
Technology Czar – Aneesh Chopra
Terrorism Czar – John Brennan
Urban Affairs Czar – Adolfo Carrion Jr.
Weapons Czar – Ashton Carter
WMD Policy Czar – Gary Samore
Sorry there’s so many; I know it’s gonna take serious focus time. But…I’m sure you agree that one can’t defend someone unless we’re informed about them, right? (Here is a well-researched list done by some “terrible right winger.”)
Oh!! I almost forgot Van Jones, the “green jobs” czar. He’s a fascinating character–no one needs to falsely accuse him of being a communist. He makes that claim all on his own. (He was radicalized in jail? How often does someone go from jail to high positions in government? Maybe Charles Manson could be ‘The Family Czar’; after all he has experience with the family.)
In his book, The $$$$Green Collar Economy, Jones bemoans that oil, natural gas, and coal are allegedly “fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources,” despite the fact that, for example, we have enough domestic natural gas resources–including new discoveries–to last for several decades; plenty of time to come up with real stewardship-worthy solutions. As supplies disappear (read: as Leftists hamstring US domestic energy development and drilling), the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring (and continues down a dark path thanks to wasteful Spendulus bills and punitive tax policies), the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere (and if you don’t accept that you will be prosecuted and re-educated). As the political Power-hungry and green profiteers like Gore cry out–climate chaos looms over us, the sky is falling, the sky is falling, we need cap and tax now. The bottom line is that Gore’s ilk and their allies in the MSM who would like to see a world communist government (ruled by an elite politburo including, of course, Gore, Obama, Soros, and the czars, who know better how to handle the world’s resources than the common folk) and want to continue to dupe the dupes in America into believing: we cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas. Oil and gas are bad. Health-care is broken. Everyone must turn in their SUV’s and take mass transit. We must “fix” the health-care system. Crisis and alarm. Blah blah blah.
***Update: Sept. 22. Within the last week or two, Mr. Jones resigned due to pressure over his radical views.
My friends, the Founding Fathers set up a framework for a healthy paranoia regarding government. They knew first hand about oppressive governments. Their goal was to find a balance between self rule of the people (what is desired) and government rule (basically there to keep us from killing each other or being killed by some foreign nemesis). Government is necessary–but it is best when kept small and completely accountable to the people who, state by state, self rule.
The people we elect swear to uphold and protect our Constitution. We, who elect them, must do our part to be sure they do just that. It doesn’t matter who is in office; balance of power is essential to our survival as a Republic.
That brings me back to the Czars. As you know, there are 3 branches designed to keep a balance of power. My position is that these Czars can and do affect the balance of power. Czars essentially bypass accountability to the other 2 branches. 1 or 2 Czars (though I don’t think there should be any at all) may not make a huge difference in radically changing our republic (without the consent of congress and the people) but what happens when there are 32? 40? 50? These Czars have the power to design and set policy with NO accountability to Congress or you and I. As a result, the balance of power is shifted to the Executive branch. It is no longer “equal”.
If you and I could be absolutely certain that this shift of power would never corrupt–or ever go contrary to what our Republic is all about–then we would not have to worry. But unfortunately, that is not what human nature is like. There is no such thing as “perfect” power. Power corrupts. The Czar apparatus does not operate within the framework of the Constitution because the Executive branch, per our Constitution, is required to vet and confirm nominees through the House and Senate. This way, we KNOW who they are and what they believe. Knowledge is power. It’s the only real power you and I have. When we are informed, we can make smart decisions about our futures.
Czars are given billions of our dollars and power to make policy (and now trillion is the new billion, right?). It is imperative that not just ONE person decides who they are. That’s what dictators do, and we don’t want that (unless, of course, someone wants that!).
These 30-odd Czars do not answer to Congress. They do not answer to us. They are not “elected”, let alone vetted or confirmed. No matter what party affiliation we are, this is not healthy for the Republic.
These powerful people with power to shape this country are put in place in a back-door sort of way. I don’t think you and I should ever want Czars–isn’t Congress bad enough? The potential damage should concern us enough to at least want to KNOW who these Czars are. At this point, if we don’t look out for ourselves we are in the dark. There is NO President or Congressperson I blindly trust. I don’t care what party they are in.
Who knows, maybe they are the most wonderful men and women that ever graced the face of the earth–but I am not willing to assume that. We should be on each others side; we should be watching each others backs. If we find there was no reason to fear–great! But, there is nothing wrong with our need to know who these people are just in case there is reason for concern, even fear. Our leadership should be vetted and elected. Reagan, Bush, Obama… NONE should have placed or place appointments that do not answer to the other branches of power–and the people.
What a fascinating foray into “soft tyranny.” This is precisely where the “Representatives” turn into “Rulers” if We the People do not inform, instruct, (and then monitor) them of their limits.
(Too bad. Here in Minnesota, I do not feel very represented…seriously, Klobachar and Franken?)
**Note: I do not believe the Republicans are going to fix America, either. In fact, they, for the most part, don’t possess the intellectual firepower to enunciate the true problems we face any more than the Power-grabbers on the Left. Most of the Republicans in Washington, too, are content with their cushy job with the best benefits, their Brooks Brothers suits, and the escort of people that meet their every whim. God save us all.
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”–Thomas JeffersonTo my young friends who read this blog,
I read his morning some words of comfort and peace to those of us who, though young in age, are observing the same truths in reality (since, i would define Truth with ‘that which comports to Reality’) and have confidence that we are accurately forecasting/communicating what is really going on.
From Job 32 we find a point in the story where the younger man in ‘the room,’ having waited patiently for the elders to speak their minds, becomes angry with the old guys who condemned Job, without any way to actually refute Job.
6 And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said:
“I am young in years,
and you are aged;
therefore I was timid and afraid
to declare my opinion to you.
7 I said, ‘Let days speak,
and many years teach wisdom.’
8 But it is the spirit in man,
the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
Coming from the mashmouth blog, the title above is, at first glance, glaringly out of place. Yes, I meant scientific evidence. Yes, I meant man-made. The thing is, though, I mean that the theory is man-made; the climate change is anything but.
Up for review are some public remarks. The first is from Claude Allegre, a scientist of the highest caliber (who, for example, was asked by NASA to help figure out the age of the moon). Allegre was among the first to sound the alarm that the Earth’s temperature was rising 20 years ago. Presently, however, he says, “There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the ‘science is settled.‘” He is convinced that global warming is a natural change and sees the threat of the ‘great dangers’ that it supposedly poses as being bloated and highly exaggerated. Allegre is a Frenchman, an avowed Socialist, and apparantly, intellectually honest, as well.
Second, Nigel Calder, the former editor of New Scientist, wrote an article in the UK Sunday Times in which he stated, “When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works.” He further stated that, “Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis”. I am willing to suggest that the Left latched on to this aforementioned hypothesis.
There are so many other quotes from experts (real, bona-fide ones!) if one is willing to take the time and search. The hard part is to read something that disagrees with their pre-formed opinions and preferences; though it is not so hard if one is intellectually honest like Allegre and Calder.
I think the last quote sheds a revealing light on the “herd” mentality of the masses. Suddently, when Big Science speaks and a consensus and then a crisis is declared, most of the People roll over and accept further infringements on their liberties. Media, politicians, and Power-grabbers bear-hug this mania and blow the bellows on the fire. Sadly, these People react down the path of least resistance. They find safety more important than their freedoms. And like a house built on the sand, it is especially dangerous when “regrettable ignorance” is the foundation on which the radical actions are grounded.
Meanwhile, those of us who speak against the Science (read: myth) of man-made climate change are labeled as agitators, fools, or worse, treasonous. That we would rise to even question the politician Gore, the economist Pauchari, National Geographic “experts”, Discovery Channel narrators, or the MSNBC squawkers is beyong the pale. We must be shut down.
I wonder how often contemporaries of the Founding Fathers were cast in this way. These men would speak to unpopular ideas in a bold and honest way. As masters of logic, familiar with the intellectual arguments of the giant philosophers of human history (AND reverentially tilted to a real trust in Providence), these men would effortlessly lambast any talking-head-kool-aid-drinker today. The volumes they penned contain the exact heirloom seeds our times need to reform for the better.
The problem is when the great words of these men are forgotten or ignored for the sake of the Present Pleasures.
When the loudest are the majority, what are the meek to do?
Along any line of reasoning, all things come to an original, single Point.. So when I was thinking of the U.S.A. today (or, the State), I couldn’t help but track back to the idea of America yesterday.
Who is the State? What is the role of the Government?
To answer this, we need to arrive at the original Point of contact. Fundamentally, government is a creation to facilitate societal needs. (Here, government will be defined as a necessary form and function from which human-beings mold an orderly, civilized platform on which to relate with others.) I would suggest that society, as a larger crowd, is mainly a formation from that abstract human need to relate. As the larger crowd, society is made up of many smaller groups.
It is here we arrive to the Point: the family. Like honeycombs stacked in a hive, the larger whole is an amalgamation of the smaller many. (Naturally, the family can be broken into separate Points, too–the Individual is certainly the point from which we each ‘see’–and these have an order and civility as well. For the needs here, however, we will begin with the ‘hexagon’ of the family.)
In the family, order and civility could be easily known by a week of observation: it is wrong to take the food of your brother, don’t hit your sister, sharing your possessions is a benefit and good, listen to your mother and father, don’t point an unloaded gun at others, etc, etc. (Of course, this observation presupposes a strictly human perspective–we have each been there, right?) These–and many many more–examples of civility presuppose a moral, or “right,” way of living. Is it not historically the father who is the ultimate end to the difficulties of figuring out what is moral and right in the family? Either the father would punish the wrongs done in the family–the evil things–or he had the power to reward the proper and beneficial behavior–the good things. Thus, the nature of humankind requires a leader to keep order, simply by necessity.
The whole of society is made up of these smaller leaders and their families, so our society needed a bigger leader, so to speak–yes, historically “men” have typically ordered and ‘run’ societies… that is, of course, only prima facie ladies (“wink”).
For millennium, the bigger leader was simply the biggest, strongest man. Families had coalesced into various communities, and a community likely would have a strong man who ‘took control’ of things to make a safe place for people to live (I mean, families gotta eat, right?). They would call him a King, and he would gather other men in the community to go battle or make peace with other kings.
Eventually, these communities coalesced into the greater whole of nations–ethnic and regional–and these nations each had their own king. These kingdoms, or States, would also go battle or make peace (people gotta eat, and there needs to be a safe place to eat, right?). This order has lasted a long time.
Thus, the State is simply a necessary formation of humankind. To do what? To battle or to make peace. This is the ‘right’ of the State: to maintain the order so people can eat (peace), and to punish the breakers of the law, or civil order, i.e. justice (battle). Again, we find ourselves at the Point of the presupposition of the moral, or right, way of living we see in the family.
Yesterday, fabricated from the thin air of abstract ideas, the U.S.A. found the light of day. The idea of America began in the 13th Century Magna Carta, with humankind’s discovery that the king should be under the same order, or laws, as every other person. “All men are created equal,” and it is this self-evident truth that is the underpinning of all order and laws in modern society. Historically, it has seemed that men have preferred liberty and free-will to the alternative of domination and control. America was the clear chance for humankind to try to get society right.
Today, the buzz surrounds these nationwide town-hall meetings: who is there and what “ties” they have, the President’s coolness under fire, sympathy for the protesters or spite for the protesters, etc. There is passion from the attendees; there is passion from the advocates of reforming the entire health-care system. Clearly, the first problem I see is that the buzz is not surrounding the issue and main reason (health-care, that vile word) for the meetings themselves. Rather, we are discussing something other than the argument (which is health-care ‘reform’–really, all the so-called reform would do is give the government control of the other 6-or-7% of the system it does not already mandate and regulate). This is where, in my view, the Left likes an argument: frame the question so as to bring the available solutions to some presupposed conclusion–even if it means creating the diversion and decoy–to achieve the final result: more and more dependence on the State. If the arguments and ideas themselves are shown to the light of day, problems and holes would be apparent. Not to say that the (political) Right has a monopoly on Truth–far from it, as they are just as likely to fall into selfishness, greedy pride–but to say that the Left is consistently based in falsehoods to get to its Point.
Today, the citizens of the USA are bombarded with a campaign (aka “battle”) from all facets of life. Political television and radio ads seemingly play nonstop every two years; mailboxes (well, now inboxes) are full of individually modified and targeted media; internet and newsprint columns tout the preferred slogans of the hour.
It is now easy to eat in America, but it is getting harder and harder to know what the proper choices are. The Point is, the Left has historically shown little more than attacks (more battle) on the “traditional family.” As one who works with youth, it is clear that it is getting harder for kids today to know what right and wrong even are, as mom and dad are often divorced (thank you women’s lib, from the Left), or teachers are permissive and “open to all” points of view (thank you post-modernism; again Left), or the gratuitous sex and violence portrayed by the MSM (run by the Left), or a multitude of other campaigns and pressures.
The problems for society remain the same: how do we provide a place for rewards or provide wrath for the wrong? Today it is becomming rarer and rarer to find a father who understands true Justice. As the government is ultimately made of the family, presumably it will then be harder for the government to get its purpose right. It will be harder to get Justice correct.
I was really hoping for a year of political campaign respite. What do we get? Global warming campaigns–“only four months of planetary safety left” until Copenhagen, the campaign for a “Latina” (to install into a position of Justice), and more campaign-style town-hall “health-care” meetings… Blah Blah Blah.
“free and independant states…must not allow the federal government to monopolize constitutional interpretation, for if that government could define the extent of its own powers, the whole purpose of the Constitution would be defeated.” Thomas Jefferson, 1798
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with the power to endanger the public liberty.” John Adams
“The average man (or person) doesn’t want to be free. He merely wants to be safe.” H. L. Menken
“America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Alexis De Tocqueville.
We are now a mighty nation, we are thirty—or about thirty millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less extent of country,—with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men,—we look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men, they fought for the principle that they were contending for; and we understood that by what they then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity that we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are.
That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]–Abraham Lincoln, July 10, 1858
Iran sure has a lot of words. All this green talk, health talk, judiciary talk here at home ignores that. Wow, how ignorant will the people feel if/when America is knocked on her ‘caboose.’
Concerning the nomination of Judge Sotomoyer to the Supreme Court of the United States: clearly, if I, or my pastor, said we could preach the gospel better because we are white, middle-class Americans, we would be utterly chastised; but this is not the gospel. The gospel will go on without us, whether we are obedient or not. Also law-based, this Supreme Court nomination affects each of us as well, and we too are obligated to obey their rulings. This lady is nominated, and her words are just labeled “mis-chosen”? When is empathy a higher ideal than justice? (btw, if you haven’t heard/read her statements, where have you been this past week?)
North Korea: I wonder how much China is using them to rattle, not just sabers, but the socialist in office.
Is the bloom off the “man-made climate change” rose? Watch for even more daring and insidious rhetoric and policies from its pseudo-scientific adherents. They were just cooking up new batches in Copenhagen last week.
I get much better performance/security from Linux vs. Windows. (I won’t buy overpriced Mac, since it is just a polished Unix distro, essentially.) My battery last longer, as well as my fan stays off. Vista bashes my laptop.
more to come…
Yeah, so… the president sure has a lot more pull among the people nowadays. Rasmussen polls (the only ones I get in my inbox daily) show him flying high. Meanwhile, his policies and political seductions are back-filling what the media carves out for him. This country will be unrecognizable in 4 years. If not sooner.
Is watering my garden with an oscillating sprinkler considered an “enhanced irrigation technique”?
Does truth require a majority to prevail?
What happened to the 5th and 10th Amendments? Are the people really that ignorant of the Constitution?
Weddings are nice places to take a wife; the ceremony is a great spiritual and personal reminder. Lovely weather, too; we had a nice walk along the river tonight. The only problem is that Saturday weddings pretty much kill the whole day. I still think it was wise that we were married on a Friday night.
The use of money is a mirror of one’s spiritual nature. Some spend others’ money and worry not; others save their money viciously (hordes); many spend their money to help others in need. The gov’t does none of this– they take money in order to make everyone the same.
I read the Bible. The last book, called The Revelation of Yeshua the Messiah to Yochanan, contains a reference to a ‘heaven on Earth’ that the people of Earth will try to enact (in the echoes of the Tower of Babel, from the book of Genesis); basically, think of what Thomas More termed “Utopia” in 1616. Well, just in time, it seems that the current mood of society points to this plausibility just within our reach: Science (among other things, through stem cells **later post on this one coming soon**) will be able to cure all kinds of disease, or else inspire the hope that it can; government is ‘cool’ again, and seeks my complete happiness, and that of my family and friends; peace will be declared soon and all hostility will be diplomatically contained Earth-wide; and finally, Christianity will lose it’s influence on society and can stop spewing intolerance so people can just get on loving one another. Well, it doesn’t end well for the proponents of this ‘heaven on Earth.’ Without Yeshua, there is no peace, heaven, or anything else, for that matter.
Concerning Miss California’s opinion stated on a very public platform: is it not ironic that those who push for tolerance are the most intolerant?
I need to reread Orwell’s 1984 and remind myself of “new-speak”. I should probably recognize it within the current political environment. condron.us
Concerning the President’s speech last week at Notre Dame: I have no problem with a president speaking at a major university commencement. The main problem is when they present the man with an honorary doctorate–his speech, placing his position on abortion front and center, was a perfect example of his political seduction. I ask then: Why need abortions be rare if they are simply a constitutional right? If there is a justifiable position for killing the unborn, why do pro-abortion (chosen purposefully) advocates seek to defend their argument so often to try and keep them safe, legal, and rare? In his speech, Obama said, “How does each of us remain firm in our principles … without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?” If your strongly held convictions are true, Mr. President, then how is the determination at which you arrive ‘above your pay grade,’ as you stated at Saddleback Church? If it is a constitutional right, why don’t they practice it in public? If it is such a right, why don’t supporters use the actual words instead of euphemisms like “reproductive health” and “choice”?
They (who?!) say that, among family members, the two topics to avoid are politics and religion. Funny thing, since discussing politics speaks to the influence and place of power in society. Religion speaks to the most important aspects of reality, existence, and life itself. What else would I wish to discuss?
If the Republican party is so dead, why do the media, etc. keep talking about it as if it is dying? I doubt that the ideas of conservatism and classical liberalism, (i.e. American values and principles) will ever die. So, if your opponent is committing suicide, you get out of the way, right? Why does the media keep trying to perpetuate this myth?
Furthermore, and in relation to ‘new-speak’, “bipartisanship”=liberal/progressive viewpoint. In fact, those liberals, effectively, who are called “moderate republicans” are honored and exalted in the media. Meanwhile, those who hold to a traditional and principled position (conservatives trying to reign in government) are now called “extremists”. This tired old liberal tactic only now gains traction among the current majority of government-educated people. The balance may have finally swung towards evil and wickedness as the truth is called a lie and now the lie is honored.
Lawrence Kudlow on Obama’s 100 day lurch to the Left:
Nowhere is the Obama vision of government interference more evident than on the banking front. The White House and Treasury are using TARP as a bullying club to force government control on the country’s financial institutions. There is no exit strategy — no endgame in sight. Quite the opposite: News reports suggest that six major banks could be subjected to government ownership, putting them in the same club as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM and Chrysler. This reminds one of Francois Mitterrand, the former socialist president of France. It’s way outside the American economic tradition.Note to Nancy Pelosi: it’s about time you clammed up. Someone must have finally told you that when you are in a hole, you need to QUIT digging.
***p.s. Madame Speaker: you, too, will arrive at the place where you must own your own actions. We each do–in this life, or at the next one.*** ok, Madame, resume squirming.
p.p.s Madame Speaker: they say the great ones make it look easy. You likely have been watching Clinton and Obama. At least Nixon had the dignity to flinch when he lied.
Ben Stein on Nixon: Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW’s, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel’s life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?And he answers it:
Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded. That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton — a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon’s kharma.
