Lance Cpl. Samuel Joyce, from Boston, accepts a bagfull of toys during the Toys For Tots 5k Run at Fleet Activities Yokosuka. Runners donated new toys to the local Marine's Toys for Tots program.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wednesday Hero Blogroll
Lance Cpl. Samuel Joyce, from Boston, accepts a bagfull of toys during the Toys For Tots 5k Run at Fleet Activities Yokosuka. Runners donated new toys to the local Marine's Toys for Tots program.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
2nd amendmant infringed...
Man....I gotta say...this is fucking bullshit!
Here we have a law abiding citizen prosecuted like a criminal for exercising their God given constitutional rights.
fucking unbelievable.
This is a travesty of jusrice!
She dis nothing wrong...
but the local police decided to revoke her license because the other fucking libtards there thought she was wrong!....WTF?
Y'know, in this country. we are allowed to carry a weapon to protect ourselves and our neighbors. And that is what it's all about. Taking care of each other!. And my question is this
: Why shouldn't we be able to take care of our own? what the fuck is wrong with doing the right thing?
Questions? comments?
Die with your boots on....
.....
Here we have a law abiding citizen prosecuted like a criminal for exercising their God given constitutional rights.
fucking unbelievable.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania woman Monday sued a county sheriff who revoked her concealed-weapons permit after she upset fellow parents by wearing her holstered pistol to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer game.
Meleanie Hain alleges in a suit filed in a Harrisburg federal court that Lebanon County Sheriff Michael DeLeo violated her Second Amendment rights and prosecuted her maliciously when he took away her permit in September.
Hain, 30, successfully appealed the revocation last month, although the judge who restored her permit questioned her judgment and said she "scared the devil" out of others who attended the Sept. 11 soccer game.
Hain said Monday her home-based baby-sitting service has suffered, her children have been harassed, and she has been ostracized by her neighbors because of DeLeo's actions. In one instance, she said, a neighbor who saw Hain in a local store had the manager ask her to leave because she was carrying her handgun.
So....I haveta say...we need to support this woman as best we can!This is a travesty of jusrice!
She dis nothing wrong...
but the local police decided to revoke her license because the other fucking libtards there thought she was wrong!....WTF?
Y'know, in this country. we are allowed to carry a weapon to protect ourselves and our neighbors. And that is what it's all about. Taking care of each other!. And my question is this
: Why shouldn't we be able to take care of our own? what the fuck is wrong with doing the right thing?
Questions? comments?
Die with your boots on....
.....
Friday, November 21, 2008
"Band of Brothers"
Great Article over at Jules Crittendon Below is an excerpt...read the whole thing here.
H/T: Marita for sending me to American Thinker to read this.
"Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans. [....]
Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.
And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump."
A hearty and warm salute to the French Soldier who wrote this...Some of them remember.
Die with your boots on...
....
"Morning Cup of Orwell..."
H/T: Fountainheadzero
Here's a beautiful little rant I ran across earlier today. This comes from KNAB over at Point vs. Counterpoint:
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
On Freedom
Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
On Power
Liberal: a power worshiper without power.
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.
On Revolution
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
On War
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.
On Truth
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
On Equality
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
On Happiness
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
On Progress
(Mankind) is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
Absolutely perfect. If you still think we're exaggerating, check out Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. You just can't make this stuff up, folks.
Here's a beautiful little rant I ran across earlier today. This comes from KNAB over at Point vs. Counterpoint:
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
On Freedom
Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
On Power
Liberal: a power worshiper without power.
So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.
On Revolution
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
On War
War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.
Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.
On Truth
Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.
In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.
We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?
The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
On Equality
No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
On Happiness
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
On Progress
(Mankind) is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.
Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
Absolutely perfect. If you still think we're exaggerating, check out Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. You just can't make this stuff up, folks.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wednesday Hero Blogroll
55 years old from Fort Belvoir, Virginia
Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.
At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, said it was a credit to the Army—and a great surprise to her—that she would make history in a male-dominated military.
"Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding," she told a standing-room-only auditorium. "Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.
"It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession," she added. "So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?' I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.'
"There is no one more surprised than I—except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.'"
You can read the rest of Gen. Dunwoody's story here.
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
...Of the People, By the People, For the People...
Howdy folks. A little bit of an Op-Ed piece here…
I spoke with a close cousin of mine on the phone this morning. We hadn't talked in over a month…mostly being he's married with 2 kids and lives on the other side of the country. The purpose of the call was to remind me that his daughter's Birthday was tomorrow and to remember to call and wish her Happy Birthday tomorrow evening. I should know these things without needing to be reminded, but it's a good thing he did cause I generally am really bad at remembering birthdays. So it was a welcomed reminder.
As usual, when we start talking, our conversation turns towards books, movies philosophy, politics, etc. And since we haven't spoken since the election results came in, we talked a bit about what our country has in store for us in the next few years. Naturally I had very little positive to say about the prospect of an Obama presidency. My cousin, to his credit is a very well-read, educated critical thinker. He doesn't often get to discuss with like minded individuals due to family and work obligations. Since I've been so far away from most of my family (geographically speaking) for so many years, I sometimes am not sure where he stands on some issues. I am generally confident that whatever stance he takes is a well reasoned one. And today I was pleasantly surprised that he agreed with most of what I had to say. We will continue the discussion I am sure at some point in the near future, but the gist of it is this; we are a failed state.
Let me explain. The concept of the republic. The democratic processes involved in the maintaining of a free republic are predicated on free and fair election by an informed public. What we have is a breakdown in what it means to be an informed public. We no longer are as a whole people, informed. I won't even go into the whitewash the media gave to Biden and Obama. That isn't really the issue. It is way deeper than that.
The seeds of socialism were planted around 90 years ago. And they failed then and they have continued to fail, while at the same time lulling the complacent public into believing they're good policies. When the Pledge of Allegiance is no longer uttered in American classrooms and openly communist educators become revered in the establishment…what does that say about how far we've come? We've fallen so far I wonder sometimes if I may have to make a choice that I would not wish on anyone, to take up arms against my fellow Americans to preserve the freedom our ancestors struggled and fought and died to preserve. I don't want to have to make that choice. I don't want to see bloodshed, but what to do? We have people voting that don't even know anything about the campaign conduct of the campaigners. When a cross section of Obama supporters were asked a slew of questions that any informed voter should know the answer to…they were either clueless or guessed wrong. Somehow they didn't know squat about their own candidates yet they all…every one of them, knew about the $150,000 wardrobe of Governor Palin. They also knew she had a pregnant teenage daughter. But they didn't know which candidate was kicked off a prior campaign trail for plagiarizing his speech (Biden). The were not aware which candidate got elected by bumping off the other party members of his own ballot…yeah (Obama). And yet, ironically they all were favorable to spreading the wealth around….ummm…that is blatantly un-american. And yet they have no idea that the one thing that kept us free was that we kept the gov't in line, not the other way around. That the government was there for a very specific purpose, of which voting to give themselves money from the public trust was not one of those. The very basic ideas that this country was founded on have been forgotten because they are no longer given proper emphasis in school. Our kids should be learning about the constitution and the foundation of this country and why it was founded. Why did we rebel against the Crown of England and declare our independence? Taxes. Taxation without representation. Supposedly we're not in the same boat now, but when the public overwhelmingly tells their congressmen not to pass a bailout and they allocate 700 billion dollars from the treasury…umm that stinks of the same issues that cause the revolution in the colonies. We're rolling over and allowing our government to fuck us and we care so little now that we rationalizing why we like being fucked in the first place. Hey! It's not so bad, you see if the government fucks me a little harder, then the poor guy down the block, well he won't be fucked so hard…he may actually get a reach around since they took out all their aggression on me. That's charity man.
The point is, the people are no longer well-informed. In order to be well informed, you have to care. You have to understand what it means to be a free person. And to love that with everything you have. You think you're free now..and you're not. We have more rights than anyone else, but we aren't free. Because we voluntarily put on the collar and allowed ourselves to be led to the slaughter. We've lost focus and direction as a people and we desperately need to find that passion for freedom again.
We need to go out and educate our children and our fellow citizens about what this country is founded on and what made it such a desirable place to immigrate to. Why did so many chase the American Dream? Because here we had freedom and if you wanted it bad enough and you worked hard, you could. Now look at us. We're trying to be like Europe. Welfare states. People should come here that want to succeed, not because we are giving out free lunches and housing. Responsible individuals that want to better themselves and believe in what we do. This great experiment called America has been failing for decades right under our noses it has begun to rot, but we just keep lighting incense to cover up the smell. We need to revitalize our spirit, not just cover up the stench with platitudes. We were a proud people once. And we had every reason to be. If we are not proud now, it is because we've been beaten.
I say we need to take back the country. And I am hearing and reading it all over the conservative kingdom. Let's do this thing. Let's show the leftists why we are right and why they are not. It's not enough to just talk to each other, we need to act show them what is good and right about the America we cherish so much. The first thing we need to do is every one of us needs to support any conservative legislation. We can't allow the leftists to continue their agendas unopposed.
Fight the good fight fellow patriots!
Die with your boots on!
…
I spoke with a close cousin of mine on the phone this morning. We hadn't talked in over a month…mostly being he's married with 2 kids and lives on the other side of the country. The purpose of the call was to remind me that his daughter's Birthday was tomorrow and to remember to call and wish her Happy Birthday tomorrow evening. I should know these things without needing to be reminded, but it's a good thing he did cause I generally am really bad at remembering birthdays. So it was a welcomed reminder.
As usual, when we start talking, our conversation turns towards books, movies philosophy, politics, etc. And since we haven't spoken since the election results came in, we talked a bit about what our country has in store for us in the next few years. Naturally I had very little positive to say about the prospect of an Obama presidency. My cousin, to his credit is a very well-read, educated critical thinker. He doesn't often get to discuss with like minded individuals due to family and work obligations. Since I've been so far away from most of my family (geographically speaking) for so many years, I sometimes am not sure where he stands on some issues. I am generally confident that whatever stance he takes is a well reasoned one. And today I was pleasantly surprised that he agreed with most of what I had to say. We will continue the discussion I am sure at some point in the near future, but the gist of it is this; we are a failed state.
Let me explain. The concept of the republic. The democratic processes involved in the maintaining of a free republic are predicated on free and fair election by an informed public. What we have is a breakdown in what it means to be an informed public. We no longer are as a whole people, informed. I won't even go into the whitewash the media gave to Biden and Obama. That isn't really the issue. It is way deeper than that.
The seeds of socialism were planted around 90 years ago. And they failed then and they have continued to fail, while at the same time lulling the complacent public into believing they're good policies. When the Pledge of Allegiance is no longer uttered in American classrooms and openly communist educators become revered in the establishment…what does that say about how far we've come? We've fallen so far I wonder sometimes if I may have to make a choice that I would not wish on anyone, to take up arms against my fellow Americans to preserve the freedom our ancestors struggled and fought and died to preserve. I don't want to have to make that choice. I don't want to see bloodshed, but what to do? We have people voting that don't even know anything about the campaign conduct of the campaigners. When a cross section of Obama supporters were asked a slew of questions that any informed voter should know the answer to…they were either clueless or guessed wrong. Somehow they didn't know squat about their own candidates yet they all…every one of them, knew about the $150,000 wardrobe of Governor Palin. They also knew she had a pregnant teenage daughter. But they didn't know which candidate was kicked off a prior campaign trail for plagiarizing his speech (Biden). The were not aware which candidate got elected by bumping off the other party members of his own ballot…yeah (Obama). And yet, ironically they all were favorable to spreading the wealth around….ummm…that is blatantly un-american. And yet they have no idea that the one thing that kept us free was that we kept the gov't in line, not the other way around. That the government was there for a very specific purpose, of which voting to give themselves money from the public trust was not one of those. The very basic ideas that this country was founded on have been forgotten because they are no longer given proper emphasis in school. Our kids should be learning about the constitution and the foundation of this country and why it was founded. Why did we rebel against the Crown of England and declare our independence? Taxes. Taxation without representation. Supposedly we're not in the same boat now, but when the public overwhelmingly tells their congressmen not to pass a bailout and they allocate 700 billion dollars from the treasury…umm that stinks of the same issues that cause the revolution in the colonies. We're rolling over and allowing our government to fuck us and we care so little now that we rationalizing why we like being fucked in the first place. Hey! It's not so bad, you see if the government fucks me a little harder, then the poor guy down the block, well he won't be fucked so hard…he may actually get a reach around since they took out all their aggression on me. That's charity man.
The point is, the people are no longer well-informed. In order to be well informed, you have to care. You have to understand what it means to be a free person. And to love that with everything you have. You think you're free now..and you're not. We have more rights than anyone else, but we aren't free. Because we voluntarily put on the collar and allowed ourselves to be led to the slaughter. We've lost focus and direction as a people and we desperately need to find that passion for freedom again.
We need to go out and educate our children and our fellow citizens about what this country is founded on and what made it such a desirable place to immigrate to. Why did so many chase the American Dream? Because here we had freedom and if you wanted it bad enough and you worked hard, you could. Now look at us. We're trying to be like Europe. Welfare states. People should come here that want to succeed, not because we are giving out free lunches and housing. Responsible individuals that want to better themselves and believe in what we do. This great experiment called America has been failing for decades right under our noses it has begun to rot, but we just keep lighting incense to cover up the smell. We need to revitalize our spirit, not just cover up the stench with platitudes. We were a proud people once. And we had every reason to be. If we are not proud now, it is because we've been beaten.
I say we need to take back the country. And I am hearing and reading it all over the conservative kingdom. Let's do this thing. Let's show the leftists why we are right and why they are not. It's not enough to just talk to each other, we need to act show them what is good and right about the America we cherish so much. The first thing we need to do is every one of us needs to support any conservative legislation. We can't allow the leftists to continue their agendas unopposed.
Fight the good fight fellow patriots!
Die with your boots on!
…
Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act
A.K.A. Assault Weapons Ban.
yup...they're already trying to bring it back. And who is sponsoring it?
5 RINOs:
Sponsor:Rep. Mark Kirk [R-IL]
Cosponsors [as of 2008-11-07]
Cosponsors [as of 2008-11-07]
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [R-FL]
Rep. Michael Ferguson [R-NJ]
Rep. Christopher Shays [R-CT]
Rep. Michael Castle [R-DE]
I am sick and tired of these assholes trampling all over the second amendment.
The facts seem to elude these freakin fascists. That's right, I'm calling you out you liberal fascists!
When you take the weapons out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, the crime rate soars...when you put the guns back in the hands of responsible citizens...the crime rate drops. That is a fact.
Die with your boots on...
...
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Real Forgotten War
You want to know where there's a real war going on...right on our southern border.
Here's a nice news update from Reuter's. Pay attention to the death toll this year alone...4300+
Mexico captures 19 suspected drug gang planes
Source: Reuters
MONTERREY, Mexico, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers have seized 19 light planes from a hangar near the U.S. border believed to be used by drug smuggling gangs, the army and Mexican media said on Thursday.
The Cessnas were found Monday in a hangar near a small airstrip in the northern state of Sonora bordering Arizona and were impounded after the owner was unable to provide flying permits and registration documents, the defense ministry said.
Mexican media said two men at the airstrip were arrested on suspicion the planes belonged to drug traffickers from the neighboring Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
The defense ministry spokesman declined to comment.
Traffickers use small planes to move illegal drugs up from Mexico's border with Central America to northern states before smuggling them into the United States, drug trade experts say.
President Felipe Calderon has sent some 40,000 troops and federal police across Mexico to try to control the country's powerful drug cartels, chalking up a rash of big arrests and drug seizures, but violence has spiraled out of control.
An unprecedented 4,300 people have died so far this year as rival gangs fight each other and security forces.
Here's a nice news update from Reuter's. Pay attention to the death toll this year alone...4300+
Mexico captures 19 suspected drug gang planes
Source: Reuters
MONTERREY, Mexico, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers have seized 19 light planes from a hangar near the U.S. border believed to be used by drug smuggling gangs, the army and Mexican media said on Thursday.
The Cessnas were found Monday in a hangar near a small airstrip in the northern state of Sonora bordering Arizona and were impounded after the owner was unable to provide flying permits and registration documents, the defense ministry said.
Mexican media said two men at the airstrip were arrested on suspicion the planes belonged to drug traffickers from the neighboring Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.
The defense ministry spokesman declined to comment.
Traffickers use small planes to move illegal drugs up from Mexico's border with Central America to northern states before smuggling them into the United States, drug trade experts say.
President Felipe Calderon has sent some 40,000 troops and federal police across Mexico to try to control the country's powerful drug cartels, chalking up a rash of big arrests and drug seizures, but violence has spiraled out of control.
An unprecedented 4,300 people have died so far this year as rival gangs fight each other and security forces.
The Road to Hell...
Y'all know how that phrase ends.
Good thing I'll be at Fiddler's Green instead...
As per pat's recommendation. Read this and spread it around. This was a comment that made it's way to become a post. I am not as learned as I ought to be. I know this. And I know the caliber of folks at the Dollard nation. Take this to heart and if you really want to stick your head in the sand...well, you're part of the problem.
A hearty Salute to tps.
H/T: Pat Dollard
Friends,
Will you please take the time to read this, and if you think it worthwhile, pass it along to your email list, and ask them to read it? Even if they voted, with all good intentions, for Mr. Obama?
I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
We learn just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the 700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and our entire government, our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about)–the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more imporant.)
Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: change.
Why?
I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
And that is only the beginning.
And I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office, a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media–did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and . . . change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
(Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.)
Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.
Don’t forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years–a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency–it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe–and why I believe it.
I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am.
Best regards
tps
Democrat Strategy in Iraq, Middle East
Full credit to Kat at Castle Argghhh!
The Democrat plan, starting with Iraq, has been to support a "bi-polar" regional solution. This solution consists of creating a multi-layered tension between states, religious ideologies and competing extremist organizations. The Democrat plan rests on the idea that each of these groups are the natural enemy of the other. By withdrawing from direct combat or reducing our foot print in the region it will cause each of these groups to focus on the weak states within the region, vying for influence. These states. like Iraq and Afghanistan will be proxies for the struggle between the Iranian/Syrian and the Saudi/Gulf States, Iran and Pakistan and Pakistan and India. It assumes that all of the different extremist terrorist organizations are either directly or indirectly controlled and supported by these various states or some groups within these states. It also assumes that these groups are a greater threat to the stability of these various states' governments and that they have a vested interest in controlling, directing or reducing the activities of these organizations. At both the state level and non-state level, it will also cause these groups to focus on gaining the de factor roll of leadership within the region. This is largely a struggle between Iran and the Saudi regime. Between the Shia and Sunni control of the ideological sweepstakes. Between the two largest oil supplying entities in the region for control of OPEC. It starts with agreeing to give Iran a nod of the head with their influence in Iraq. They believe our withdrawal from Iraq will let some pressue off of Iran and their fear of "regime change". By taking pressure off of Iran and reducing this fear it is expected that the Iranian backed organizations will stop focusing on disrupting US activities. In many regards, the Democrat plan hopes to take pressure off of US activities in Afghanistan where Iranian EFPs (explosive formed projectiles) started to make an appearance in IEDs (improvised explosive devices) used against US and coalition forces. This assumes that the main reason that Iran would be sending these weapons into Afghanistan is the fear of long term US presence in the area that could threaten Iran in the future.At the same time, the current US program of increased selling of US weapons to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to build up their conventional capabilities will continue or possibly increase. With the probability of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, this will once again re-affirm the US/Saudi alliance. This will also provide the US with a stronger bargaining chip in regards to investigating and tracking down extremists within Saudi Arabia as well as with the Saudi's vis-a-vis oil production.Iraq will act as the middle man between these regimes with the US still having considerable influence. Iraq will also fear both parties going at each other over Iraq's borders so they will be firmly in our pockets. Unlike the Bush administration's plan to insure Iraq becomes a strong nation with a strong army that would act as a bulwark against Iran along with Saudi Arabia, the Obama doctrine may be content to allow Iraq to remain relatively weak as a bargaining chip between the Iranians and Saudis.Iran with a nuclear weapon is not necessarily a game changer nor unexpected. At this point, all parties are likely working on the theory that it is inevitable. The only question is how much they can slow down it's advent and prepare for a regional version of Cold War.Now, look at that the same over Afghanistan between iran and Pakistan. They are setting up the great Shia/Sunni split between Iran and Pakistan over Afghanistan. Again, creating tension and the onus for each to want to stabilize the area lest it overflows into their nations. There is also the obvious potential for growth of energy, food and material markets in Afghanistan for both Iran and Pakistan.A nuclear Iran might be considered a positive in the face of a nuclear Pakistan where radical elements are struggling to take over part or all of the nation either through violent over throw or through the democratic process. This sets nuclear Shia Iran against nuclear Sunni Pakistan. Separate, but within play, is nuclear Pakistan and nuclear India. With the recent attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, allegedly assisted by elements of the Pakistani ISI, the real potential for continued instability in that region may actually come from the continuing conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. Pakistan is fearful that it will be surrounded by India on one side and Afghanistan with Indian influence on the other. Any agreements between the US and Iran over stability in Afghanistan may be seen as a further danger to the Pakistani government rather than any positive alleviation of concerns with Indian influence. The potential problems with this is manifold. First, it assumes that allowing Iran to get a nuclear weapon is a matter of time and presents itself only as an either or situation: military action to interdict or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and work on detente or containment policy. Regardless of the last five years of continuous denigration of the US efforts in Iraq, the Obama plan will be happy to take over with a relatively stable and democratic Iraq, however weak the current government is or remains. Unfortunately, allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and developing some form of detente agreement will provide Ahmedinejad credentials for the next election and shore up the Islamist government for decades to come. Obviously, the Democrat plan is opting for stability over any ideological or long term expectations of changing the political or ideological structure of the Middle East. Second, it assumes that Iran is, in fact, a rational actor that is currently faced with multiple internal issues from dissent and from financial difficulties. They will be looking to strengthen their position considerably. The Democrats are assuming that the quad pressure of Israel with nukes, Iran with Nukes, Pakistan with Nukes and India with Nukes will act as some sort of Cold War type deterrence amongst all those who are desirous of surviving. It might even act to solidify the wobbly Pakistani government who will be faced with an enemy on each side and within.Obviously, there are those who are somewhat concerned about Iran as a rational actor or that Pakistan will stabilize and not fall to the radical Islamist elements. Maybe the Obama plan considers this as a positive because then it will change the Islamists from guerrillas with limited assets to lose into a governing body with a country full of assets and everything to lose. In short, give them what they want and make them have to work to keep it. In some regards, the thought process is understandable, but it is a continuation of the idea that all of these groups are either rational actors or will become rational actors once they have something to lose. This also kicks loose of the idea that the US is at war with radical Islam and instead places these elements back within the responsibility of the states that they occupy or come from. The US will remain on a war footing in Afghanistan for sometime, but the onus will be placed back on "police" and "intelligence" activities. This will include additional money and intelligence sharing with the individual nations involved.Finally, even if these entities still go at it with proxies across the middle east, it won't be any different than it has been to date and the US will simply have to work harder on creating a defense at home to keep terrorists out and US interests abroad safe. This places any fear of attack on western allies by a nuclear Iran very low in consideration.However, with nuclear proliferation expanding exponentially, the security of the US may still be in jeopardy. Obama is still talking about cutting missile defense systems, slowing future combat system development and not replacing aging nuclear weapons. The idea of going detente with nuclear enemies and then slowly dismantling US missiles and defense systems seems unnecessarily dangerous. In fact, it is the one concept based on ideology rather than any rational "real politics". It is the idea that the dismantling of the US arms will convince other nations that there is no reason to develop those weapons as a defensive measure. That, above all else, seems to be more about "hope" than based on any actions of these nations to date. In the mean time, Iran tests a new missile that can easily reach Israel and possibly Eastern Europe. Israel and Saudi Arabia seem to be taking choppy, uncoordinated dance steps towards some sort of rapproachment. Both may have felt compelled to make some sort of effort with the potential of a US withdrawal, an Iranian nuclear weapon and Iranian growth of Hezbollah in Lebanon and now in Iraq. Iraq where car bombs and suicide bombers are suddenly becoming the rage again.Obama's strategy may appear fairly workable, but it remains to be seen whether Iraq will remain stable, if Afghanistan can be stabilized, if the Taliban can be brought into some sort of agreement, if Pakistan can remain stable, if Iran is rational, if Hamas or Hezbollah do not decide to attack Israel, if Syria will remain a stabilizing force or be influenced by Iran and on and on and on.
The Democrat plan, starting with Iraq, has been to support a "bi-polar" regional solution. This solution consists of creating a multi-layered tension between states, religious ideologies and competing extremist organizations. The Democrat plan rests on the idea that each of these groups are the natural enemy of the other. By withdrawing from direct combat or reducing our foot print in the region it will cause each of these groups to focus on the weak states within the region, vying for influence. These states. like Iraq and Afghanistan will be proxies for the struggle between the Iranian/Syrian and the Saudi/Gulf States, Iran and Pakistan and Pakistan and India. It assumes that all of the different extremist terrorist organizations are either directly or indirectly controlled and supported by these various states or some groups within these states. It also assumes that these groups are a greater threat to the stability of these various states' governments and that they have a vested interest in controlling, directing or reducing the activities of these organizations. At both the state level and non-state level, it will also cause these groups to focus on gaining the de factor roll of leadership within the region. This is largely a struggle between Iran and the Saudi regime. Between the Shia and Sunni control of the ideological sweepstakes. Between the two largest oil supplying entities in the region for control of OPEC. It starts with agreeing to give Iran a nod of the head with their influence in Iraq. They believe our withdrawal from Iraq will let some pressue off of Iran and their fear of "regime change". By taking pressure off of Iran and reducing this fear it is expected that the Iranian backed organizations will stop focusing on disrupting US activities. In many regards, the Democrat plan hopes to take pressure off of US activities in Afghanistan where Iranian EFPs (explosive formed projectiles) started to make an appearance in IEDs (improvised explosive devices) used against US and coalition forces. This assumes that the main reason that Iran would be sending these weapons into Afghanistan is the fear of long term US presence in the area that could threaten Iran in the future.At the same time, the current US program of increased selling of US weapons to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to build up their conventional capabilities will continue or possibly increase. With the probability of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, this will once again re-affirm the US/Saudi alliance. This will also provide the US with a stronger bargaining chip in regards to investigating and tracking down extremists within Saudi Arabia as well as with the Saudi's vis-a-vis oil production.Iraq will act as the middle man between these regimes with the US still having considerable influence. Iraq will also fear both parties going at each other over Iraq's borders so they will be firmly in our pockets. Unlike the Bush administration's plan to insure Iraq becomes a strong nation with a strong army that would act as a bulwark against Iran along with Saudi Arabia, the Obama doctrine may be content to allow Iraq to remain relatively weak as a bargaining chip between the Iranians and Saudis.Iran with a nuclear weapon is not necessarily a game changer nor unexpected. At this point, all parties are likely working on the theory that it is inevitable. The only question is how much they can slow down it's advent and prepare for a regional version of Cold War.Now, look at that the same over Afghanistan between iran and Pakistan. They are setting up the great Shia/Sunni split between Iran and Pakistan over Afghanistan. Again, creating tension and the onus for each to want to stabilize the area lest it overflows into their nations. There is also the obvious potential for growth of energy, food and material markets in Afghanistan for both Iran and Pakistan.A nuclear Iran might be considered a positive in the face of a nuclear Pakistan where radical elements are struggling to take over part or all of the nation either through violent over throw or through the democratic process. This sets nuclear Shia Iran against nuclear Sunni Pakistan. Separate, but within play, is nuclear Pakistan and nuclear India. With the recent attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, allegedly assisted by elements of the Pakistani ISI, the real potential for continued instability in that region may actually come from the continuing conflict between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. Pakistan is fearful that it will be surrounded by India on one side and Afghanistan with Indian influence on the other. Any agreements between the US and Iran over stability in Afghanistan may be seen as a further danger to the Pakistani government rather than any positive alleviation of concerns with Indian influence. The potential problems with this is manifold. First, it assumes that allowing Iran to get a nuclear weapon is a matter of time and presents itself only as an either or situation: military action to interdict or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and work on detente or containment policy. Regardless of the last five years of continuous denigration of the US efforts in Iraq, the Obama plan will be happy to take over with a relatively stable and democratic Iraq, however weak the current government is or remains. Unfortunately, allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and developing some form of detente agreement will provide Ahmedinejad credentials for the next election and shore up the Islamist government for decades to come. Obviously, the Democrat plan is opting for stability over any ideological or long term expectations of changing the political or ideological structure of the Middle East. Second, it assumes that Iran is, in fact, a rational actor that is currently faced with multiple internal issues from dissent and from financial difficulties. They will be looking to strengthen their position considerably. The Democrats are assuming that the quad pressure of Israel with nukes, Iran with Nukes, Pakistan with Nukes and India with Nukes will act as some sort of Cold War type deterrence amongst all those who are desirous of surviving. It might even act to solidify the wobbly Pakistani government who will be faced with an enemy on each side and within.Obviously, there are those who are somewhat concerned about Iran as a rational actor or that Pakistan will stabilize and not fall to the radical Islamist elements. Maybe the Obama plan considers this as a positive because then it will change the Islamists from guerrillas with limited assets to lose into a governing body with a country full of assets and everything to lose. In short, give them what they want and make them have to work to keep it. In some regards, the thought process is understandable, but it is a continuation of the idea that all of these groups are either rational actors or will become rational actors once they have something to lose. This also kicks loose of the idea that the US is at war with radical Islam and instead places these elements back within the responsibility of the states that they occupy or come from. The US will remain on a war footing in Afghanistan for sometime, but the onus will be placed back on "police" and "intelligence" activities. This will include additional money and intelligence sharing with the individual nations involved.Finally, even if these entities still go at it with proxies across the middle east, it won't be any different than it has been to date and the US will simply have to work harder on creating a defense at home to keep terrorists out and US interests abroad safe. This places any fear of attack on western allies by a nuclear Iran very low in consideration.However, with nuclear proliferation expanding exponentially, the security of the US may still be in jeopardy. Obama is still talking about cutting missile defense systems, slowing future combat system development and not replacing aging nuclear weapons. The idea of going detente with nuclear enemies and then slowly dismantling US missiles and defense systems seems unnecessarily dangerous. In fact, it is the one concept based on ideology rather than any rational "real politics". It is the idea that the dismantling of the US arms will convince other nations that there is no reason to develop those weapons as a defensive measure. That, above all else, seems to be more about "hope" than based on any actions of these nations to date. In the mean time, Iran tests a new missile that can easily reach Israel and possibly Eastern Europe. Israel and Saudi Arabia seem to be taking choppy, uncoordinated dance steps towards some sort of rapproachment. Both may have felt compelled to make some sort of effort with the potential of a US withdrawal, an Iranian nuclear weapon and Iranian growth of Hezbollah in Lebanon and now in Iraq. Iraq where car bombs and suicide bombers are suddenly becoming the rage again.Obama's strategy may appear fairly workable, but it remains to be seen whether Iraq will remain stable, if Afghanistan can be stabilized, if the Taliban can be brought into some sort of agreement, if Pakistan can remain stable, if Iran is rational, if Hamas or Hezbollah do not decide to attack Israel, if Syria will remain a stabilizing force or be influenced by Iran and on and on and on.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wednesday Hero Blogroll
25 years old from Fulton, New York
2nd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division
December 3, 2006
Spc. Kenneth Haines joined the United States Army in September 2000 as a fire support specialist and had been assigned to his unit for just over three years. He deployed to Iraq in October of 2006.
During his time in service, he received several military awards and decorations, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and National Defense Service Medal.
Spc. Haines was killed by an IED that was detonated near his vehicle while on patrol in Abu Hishma, Iraq.
All Information Was Found On And Copied From MilitaryCity.com
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Welcome Home Sergeant!
By ZACH BENOIT
Of The Gazette Staff
Sgt. Tyson Two Two stood on a war blanket provided by his family, a traditional Northern Cheyenne Tribe war bonnet perfectly complementing his dress blues, as drummers and singers welcomed him home.Saturday afternoon in the baggage claim lobby of Billings Logan International Airport, Two Two, 24, a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps and member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, was welcomed home from a seven-month tour in Iraq by about 50 family members and friends from the Northern Cheyenne reservation."I knew something was going on today because they asked me to come in uniform," the 2002 Colstrip High grad said with a smile while surveying the crowd gathered at the airport in his honor. "It feels great to be back. It's been a long time."Two Two was in Iraq from April to October this year as a Marine transport mechanic, supporting combat security teams at Al Asad Air Base, in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi and along the Jordanian and Syrian borders.
The entire article from the Billings Gazette can be found here.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
God Bless all of those who served...and those who still do...
Today is our day brothers and sisters. Today is Remembrance day...Armistace Day...Veterans day.
Today is our day. Be proud and stand tall for the sacrifices you have made and the ones you will make.
I personally want to thank all veterans that have served to preserve the way of life we hold dear. I want to include here, not just our own GIs here in the US, but the Canadians and the "diggers" of Australia, the Kiwis of New Zealand and our Brothers in arms in the British service...we share a common heritage and every man and woman who has put their life, love and family on the line for us...thank you!
Here's a really heart wrenching video that is geared towards Canadian 'Remembrance Day"...but it holds true for all of us.
A Pittance of Time...
To those who served and continue to....We salute you!
Die with your boots on...
H/T: Tanker Brothers
...
Today is our day. Be proud and stand tall for the sacrifices you have made and the ones you will make.
I personally want to thank all veterans that have served to preserve the way of life we hold dear. I want to include here, not just our own GIs here in the US, but the Canadians and the "diggers" of Australia, the Kiwis of New Zealand and our Brothers in arms in the British service...we share a common heritage and every man and woman who has put their life, love and family on the line for us...thank you!
Here's a really heart wrenching video that is geared towards Canadian 'Remembrance Day"...but it holds true for all of us.
A Pittance of Time...
To those who served and continue to....We salute you!
Die with your boots on...
H/T: Tanker Brothers
...
Friday, November 7, 2008
Michael Reagan Defends Palin
I can't believe the way McCain campaign staffers have been trashing Sarah Palin. This is conduct unbecoming of the republican party. There is no way anyone could possibly blame Palin for McCain's loss. If anything she energized us because she is a conservative. She brought votes to McCain, it was the weenies on McCain's staff that screwed up.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Some words from our "Great Uncle Teddy"
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
~Teddy Roosevelt
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Wednesday Hero Blogroll
Cpt. Gussie M. Jones
41 years old from Raleigh, Arkansas
31st Combat Support Hospital
March 07, 2004
Cpt. Gussie Jones was born in Arkansas and was one of eight children. She began her Army career by enlisting in 1988 as a personnel clerk and climbed to the rank of a sergeant.
In 1986, Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Arkansas Central University. She was selected to attend the Army Enlisted Commissioning Program and earned her second bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University in 1998. It was in nursing.
Her career as a registered nurse and a commissioned officer began in September 1998 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. In 2002, after completing a course in critical-care nursing, she was assigned to Beaumont Army Medical Center, where she became a mentor.
"She was a very dedicated person and was always smiling, said a co-worker and friend, Capt. Susan Gilbert. If anyone asked her to do something, she would do it. And she was very kind and gentle and patient with the patients."
Cpt. Jones died of a heart attack while on duty in Baghdad, Iraq. During her 15 years of military services, Jones received a Joint Service Commendation medal, four Army Commendation medals and three Army Achievement medals.
"She was so much a part of their team, and so her death must really affect their morale," Gilbert said. "I'm very worried about the other soldiers because they've lost their battle buddy."
All Information Was Found On And Copied From MilitaryCity.com
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Let me introduce you to HR 808
H/T: Gates of Vienna , Hillbuzz , Wizbang , and the Corner
From the Library of Congress, HR 808
Check out the link and peruse it...there's alot of stuff in there and some of it sounds...well, just "peachy". Except of course the whole idea being one big happy planet...at the expense of the US taxpayer.
H.R.808
Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act (Introduced in House)
TITLE I--ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE
SEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE.
(a) Establishment- There is hereby established a Department of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Department'), which shall--
(1) be a cabinet-level department in the executive branch of the Federal Government; and
(2) be dedicated to peacemaking and the study of conditions that are conducive to both domestic and international peace.
(b) Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence- There shall be at the head of the Department a Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Secretary'), who shall be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.
(c) Mission- The Department shall--
(1) hold peace as an organizing principle, coordinating service to every level of American society;
(2) endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights;
(3) strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking;
(4) promote the development of human potential;
(5) work to create peace, prevent violence, divert from armed conflict, use field-tested programs, and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution;
(6) take a proactive, strategic approach in the development of policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict;
(7) address matters both domestic and international in scope; and
(8) encourage the development of initiatives from local communities, religious groups, and nongovernmental organizations.
SEC. 102. RESPONSIBILITIES AND POWERS.
(a) In General- The Secretary shall--
(1) work proactively and interactively with each branch of the Federal Government on all policy matters relating to conditions of peace;
(2) serve as a delegate to the National Security Council;
(3) call on the intellectual and spiritual wealth of the people of the United States and seek participation in its administration and in its development of policy from private, public, and nongovernmental organizations; and
(4) monitor and analyze causative principles of conflict and make policy recommendations for developing and maintaining peaceful conduct.
(b) Domestic Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop policies that address domestic violence, including spousal abuse, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly;
(2) create new policies and incorporate existing programs that reduce drug and alcohol abuse;
(3) develop new policies and incorporate existing policies regarding crime, punishment, and rehabilitation;
(4) develop policies to address violence against animals;
(5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns;
(6) develop new programs that relate to the societal challenges of school violence, gangs, racial or ethnic violence, violence against gays and lesbians, and police-community relations disputes;
(7) make policy recommendations to the Attorney General regarding civil rights and labor law;
(8) assist in the establishment and funding of community-based violence prevention programs, including violence prevention counseling and peer mediation in schools;
(9) counsel and advocate on behalf of women victimized by violence;
(10) provide for public education programs and counseling strategies concerning hate crimes;
(11) promote racial, religious, and ethnic tolerance;
(12) finance local community initiatives that can draw on neighborhood resources to create peace projects that facilitate the development of conflict resolution at a national level and thereby inform and inspire national policy; and
(13) provide ethical-based and value-based analyses to the Department of Defense.
(c) International Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict;
(2) provide for the training of all United States personnel who administer postconflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies;
(3) sponsor country and regional conflict prevention and dispute resolution initiatives, create special task forces, and draw on local, regional, and national expertise to develop plans and programs for addressing the root sources of conflict in troubled areas;
(4) provide for exchanges between the United States and other nations of individuals who endeavor to develop domestic and international peace-based initiatives;
(5) encourage the development of international sister city programs, pairing United States cities with cities around the globe for artistic, cultural, economic, educational, and faith-based exchanges;
(6) administer the training of civilian peacekeepers who participate in multinational nonviolent police forces and support civilian police who participate in peacekeeping;
(7) jointly with the Secretary of the Treasury, strengthen peace enforcement through hiring and training monitors and investigators to help with the enforcement of international arms embargoes;
(8) facilitate the development of peace summits at which parties to a conflict may gather under carefully prepared conditions to promote nonviolent communication and mutually beneficial solutions;
(9) submit to the President recommendations for reductions in weapons of mass destruction, and make annual reports to the President on the sale of arms from the United States to other nations, with analysis of the impact of such sales on the defense of the United States and how such sales affect peace;
(10) in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop strategies for sustainability and management of the distribution of international funds; and
(11) advise the United States Ambassador to the United Nations on matters pertaining to the United Nations Security Council.
(d) Human Security Responsibilities- The Secretary shall address and offer nonviolent conflict resolution strategies to all relevant parties on issues of human security if such security is threatened by conflict, whether such conflict is geographic, religious, ethnic, racial, or class-based in its origin, derives from economic concerns (including trade or maldistribution of wealth), or is initiated through disputes concerning scarcity of natural resources (such as water and energy resources), food, trade, or environmental concerns.
(e) Media-Related Responsibilities- Respecting the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the requirement for free and independent media, the Secretary shall--
(1) seek assistance in the design and implementation of nonviolent policies from media professionals;
(2) study the role of the media in the escalation and de-escalation of conflict at domestic and international levels and make findings public; and
(3) make recommendations to professional media organizations in order to provide opportunities to increase media awareness of peace-building initiatives.
(f) Educational Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop a peace education curriculum, which shall include studies of--
(A) the civil rights movement in the United States and throughout the world, with special emphasis on how individual endeavor and involvement have contributed to advancements in peace and justice; and
(B) peace agreements and circumstances in which peaceful intervention has worked to stop conflict;
(2) in cooperation with the Secretary of Education--
(A) commission the development of such curricula and make such curricula available to local school districts to enable the utilization of peace education objectives at all elementary and secondary schools in the United States; and
(B) offer incentives in the form of grants and training to encourage the development of State peace curricula and assist schools in applying for such curricula;
(3) work with educators to equip students to become skilled in achieving peace through reflection, and facilitate instruction in the ways of peaceful conflict resolution;
(4) maintain a site on the Internet for the purposes of soliciting and receiving ideas for the development of peace from the wealth of political, social and cultural diversity;
(5) proactively engage the critical thinking capabilities of grade school, high school, and college students and teachers through the Internet and other media and issue periodic reports concerning submissions;
(6) create and establish a Peace Academy, which shall--
(A) be modeled after the military service academies;
(B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution; and
(7) provide grants for peace studies departments in colleges and universities throughout the United States.
From the Library of Congress, HR 808
Check out the link and peruse it...there's alot of stuff in there and some of it sounds...well, just "peachy". Except of course the whole idea being one big happy planet...at the expense of the US taxpayer.
H.R.808
Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act (Introduced in House)
TITLE I--ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE
SEC. 101. ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE.
(a) Establishment- There is hereby established a Department of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Department'), which shall--
(1) be a cabinet-level department in the executive branch of the Federal Government; and
(2) be dedicated to peacemaking and the study of conditions that are conducive to both domestic and international peace.
(b) Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence- There shall be at the head of the Department a Secretary of Peace and Nonviolence (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the `Secretary'), who shall be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.
(c) Mission- The Department shall--
(1) hold peace as an organizing principle, coordinating service to every level of American society;
(2) endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights;
(3) strengthen nonmilitary means of peacemaking;
(4) promote the development of human potential;
(5) work to create peace, prevent violence, divert from armed conflict, use field-tested programs, and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution;
(6) take a proactive, strategic approach in the development of policies that promote national and international conflict prevention, nonviolent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict;
(7) address matters both domestic and international in scope; and
(8) encourage the development of initiatives from local communities, religious groups, and nongovernmental organizations.
SEC. 102. RESPONSIBILITIES AND POWERS.
(a) In General- The Secretary shall--
(1) work proactively and interactively with each branch of the Federal Government on all policy matters relating to conditions of peace;
(2) serve as a delegate to the National Security Council;
(3) call on the intellectual and spiritual wealth of the people of the United States and seek participation in its administration and in its development of policy from private, public, and nongovernmental organizations; and
(4) monitor and analyze causative principles of conflict and make policy recommendations for developing and maintaining peaceful conduct.
(b) Domestic Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop policies that address domestic violence, including spousal abuse, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly;
(2) create new policies and incorporate existing programs that reduce drug and alcohol abuse;
(3) develop new policies and incorporate existing policies regarding crime, punishment, and rehabilitation;
(4) develop policies to address violence against animals;
(5) analyze existing policies, employ successful, field-tested programs, and develop new approaches for dealing with the implements of violence, including gun-related violence and the overwhelming presence of handguns;
(6) develop new programs that relate to the societal challenges of school violence, gangs, racial or ethnic violence, violence against gays and lesbians, and police-community relations disputes;
(7) make policy recommendations to the Attorney General regarding civil rights and labor law;
(8) assist in the establishment and funding of community-based violence prevention programs, including violence prevention counseling and peer mediation in schools;
(9) counsel and advocate on behalf of women victimized by violence;
(10) provide for public education programs and counseling strategies concerning hate crimes;
(11) promote racial, religious, and ethnic tolerance;
(12) finance local community initiatives that can draw on neighborhood resources to create peace projects that facilitate the development of conflict resolution at a national level and thereby inform and inspire national policy; and
(13) provide ethical-based and value-based analyses to the Department of Defense.
(c) International Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict;
(2) provide for the training of all United States personnel who administer postconflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies;
(3) sponsor country and regional conflict prevention and dispute resolution initiatives, create special task forces, and draw on local, regional, and national expertise to develop plans and programs for addressing the root sources of conflict in troubled areas;
(4) provide for exchanges between the United States and other nations of individuals who endeavor to develop domestic and international peace-based initiatives;
(5) encourage the development of international sister city programs, pairing United States cities with cities around the globe for artistic, cultural, economic, educational, and faith-based exchanges;
(6) administer the training of civilian peacekeepers who participate in multinational nonviolent police forces and support civilian police who participate in peacekeeping;
(7) jointly with the Secretary of the Treasury, strengthen peace enforcement through hiring and training monitors and investigators to help with the enforcement of international arms embargoes;
(8) facilitate the development of peace summits at which parties to a conflict may gather under carefully prepared conditions to promote nonviolent communication and mutually beneficial solutions;
(9) submit to the President recommendations for reductions in weapons of mass destruction, and make annual reports to the President on the sale of arms from the United States to other nations, with analysis of the impact of such sales on the defense of the United States and how such sales affect peace;
(10) in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop strategies for sustainability and management of the distribution of international funds; and
(11) advise the United States Ambassador to the United Nations on matters pertaining to the United Nations Security Council.
(d) Human Security Responsibilities- The Secretary shall address and offer nonviolent conflict resolution strategies to all relevant parties on issues of human security if such security is threatened by conflict, whether such conflict is geographic, religious, ethnic, racial, or class-based in its origin, derives from economic concerns (including trade or maldistribution of wealth), or is initiated through disputes concerning scarcity of natural resources (such as water and energy resources), food, trade, or environmental concerns.
(e) Media-Related Responsibilities- Respecting the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the requirement for free and independent media, the Secretary shall--
(1) seek assistance in the design and implementation of nonviolent policies from media professionals;
(2) study the role of the media in the escalation and de-escalation of conflict at domestic and international levels and make findings public; and
(3) make recommendations to professional media organizations in order to provide opportunities to increase media awareness of peace-building initiatives.
(f) Educational Responsibilities- The Secretary shall--
(1) develop a peace education curriculum, which shall include studies of--
(A) the civil rights movement in the United States and throughout the world, with special emphasis on how individual endeavor and involvement have contributed to advancements in peace and justice; and
(B) peace agreements and circumstances in which peaceful intervention has worked to stop conflict;
(2) in cooperation with the Secretary of Education--
(A) commission the development of such curricula and make such curricula available to local school districts to enable the utilization of peace education objectives at all elementary and secondary schools in the United States; and
(B) offer incentives in the form of grants and training to encourage the development of State peace curricula and assist schools in applying for such curricula;
(3) work with educators to equip students to become skilled in achieving peace through reflection, and facilitate instruction in the ways of peaceful conflict resolution;
(4) maintain a site on the Internet for the purposes of soliciting and receiving ideas for the development of peace from the wealth of political, social and cultural diversity;
(5) proactively engage the critical thinking capabilities of grade school, high school, and college students and teachers through the Internet and other media and issue periodic reports concerning submissions;
(6) create and establish a Peace Academy, which shall--
(A) be modeled after the military service academies;
(B) provide a 4-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates will be required to serve 5 years in public service in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution; and
(7) provide grants for peace studies departments in colleges and universities throughout the United States.
The Mexican Drug War...Nogales AZ
Our southern border is a warzone people... lest we forget what's happening here.
Tucson Region
Sonora's state police chief slain in Nogales - Attack with guns, grenades targets him outside hotel
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 11.04.2008 http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/mailstory-clickthru/265517.php
Gunmen ambushed the director of Sonora's state police Sunday night, killing him with a barrage of gunfire as well as grenades as he entered his hotel in central Nogales alongside his bodyguard and other law-enforcement officials.
Juan Manuel Pavón Félix died a short time later in a local hospital, according to a news release from the Sonora Attorney General's Office. The killing is the latest example of the bloody battle being waged in Nogales, Sonora, between the drug cartels and Mexican law enforcement. But it is the first time a high-ranking law-enforcement official has been killed in Sonora since Agua Prieta Police Chief Ramón Tacho Verdugo was killed on Feb. 27, 2007.
"We are just in shock this morning," said David Gonzales, U.S. marshal in Arizona.
Gonzales and others in Arizona's law enforcement community knew Pavón from his involvement in a binational police organization called Policia Internacional Sonora-Arizona that brings together law enforcement from the two states each year. Pavón was in Tucson last week for an event hosted by the U.S. Marshals Service to honor him and others for their work in capturing fugitives.
Luis Noriega, the Mexico investigative liaison for the U.S. Marshals Service in Arizona, met with Pávon on Saturday in Tucson and said Pavón didn't express any concerns about his safety. Noriega described Pávon as personable, friendly, professional, compassionate and a man of honor.
"He was a good person, I can't say enough good things about him," Noriega said. "It's a tragic loss for all of us."
The assassination occurred at 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Marqués de Cima Hotel, about 2 1/2 miles south of the border off Avenida Alvaro Obregon, which runs south from the downtown Dennis DeConcini port of entry and out of the city.
Pavón was getting out of the car when gunmen in the upper part of the building opened fire and launched grenades, the release said. The Marqués de Cima is a five-story hotel on the west side of Avenida Álvaro Obregón.
Pavón was still alive when he was taken to a hospital but died a few minutes later. Three other officers were wounded in the attack and are in stable condition.
Pavón and other law-enforcement officials from out of town were staying in the hotel. Most of them were in their rooms when the attack occurred, the attorney general news release said.
The attack prompted Mexican authorities to stop allowing traffic from the U.S. into Mexico through the Nogales ports of entry for about two hours Sunday night, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman. Traffic into the U.S. never stopped, but it was delayed for a while, Levin said.
State police have been in Nogales for the past two months working in a special operation along with city and federal police to combat violence fueled by drug cartels that has reached unprecedented levels this year in the border city.
There had been 76 homicides recorded in Nogales through September, the latest figures available, surpassing the 2007 total of 52 and more than doubling the 2006 total of 35. Most of the killing has been attributed to feuding drug cartels.
The bloodshed landed Nogales for the first time on the U.S. State Department's new "travel alert" issued on Oct. 14 alongside notoriously dangerous cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo. The alert — which cautions U.S. citizens about ongoing issues but doesn't instruct them not to travel in Mexico — mentions Nogales as one of the cities that "recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues."
On Oct. 23, violence returned to the city when state police killed 10 organized-crime gunmen during a rolling gunbattle that went past supermarkets and malls and down side streets before ending in an industrial park.
Some have theorized the assassination of Pavón could be in retaliation for that shootout, in which Pavón's state police units played the lead role.
"It could have been payback," said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, speaking without direct knowledge of the slaying. But, officially, the motive behind the attack on Pavón remains unclear.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Arizona couldn't talk about the motives behind the shooting since it's part of an ongoing investigation and U.S. Marshal Gonzales said he has no knowledge of why it happened.
El Imparcial newspaper in Sonora speculated that a shootout Saturday in Nogales that led to the arrest of four gunmen, one of whom was wounded, could have triggered the attack on Pavón. Police arrested the four and seized six rifles, ammunition, magazines, bulletproof vests and helmets and their vehicle.
Whatever the motive, the assassination of Pavón has U.S. officials more concerned than ever about their counterparts across the border. "It's got to be frustrating for them over there," Estrada said. "They are trying to make an impact on what's happening and this is a major setback in those efforts."
The cartels are working hard to establish their power in response to the government crackdown, Gonzales said.
"This is a power struggle," Gonzales said. "They are sending a statement that 'we are in charge and we are in power' and trying to get the government to back down by gunning down high-ranking police officers."
On Monday afternoon, Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours said Mexican President Felipe Calderón informed him that 300 federal agents will be sent to join the crackdown in Nogales, Hermosillo and Caborca, El Imparcial reported. They'll join 100 federal agents already in Nogales working in the three level operation.
Pávon, who was married with two children, took over as chief of the state police on March 6, 2007, according to El Imparcial. He was known for a Christmas Eve event he hosted each year in Hermosillo for poor children, the newspaper said.
He had worked previously as an investigator for the Sonoran Investigative police in Guaymas, Ciudad Obregón, Puerto Peñasco and Navojoa, among others.
The U.S. Marshals Service spoke with Pávon nearly once a week to stay in touch on ongoing investigations regrading fugitives, Gonzales said. "He was a great ally working with us on detaining fugitives out of Mexico," he said
Tucson Region
Sonora's state police chief slain in Nogales - Attack with guns, grenades targets him outside hotel
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 11.04.2008 http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/mailstory-clickthru/265517.php
Gunmen ambushed the director of Sonora's state police Sunday night, killing him with a barrage of gunfire as well as grenades as he entered his hotel in central Nogales alongside his bodyguard and other law-enforcement officials.
Juan Manuel Pavón Félix died a short time later in a local hospital, according to a news release from the Sonora Attorney General's Office. The killing is the latest example of the bloody battle being waged in Nogales, Sonora, between the drug cartels and Mexican law enforcement. But it is the first time a high-ranking law-enforcement official has been killed in Sonora since Agua Prieta Police Chief Ramón Tacho Verdugo was killed on Feb. 27, 2007.
"We are just in shock this morning," said David Gonzales, U.S. marshal in Arizona.
Gonzales and others in Arizona's law enforcement community knew Pavón from his involvement in a binational police organization called Policia Internacional Sonora-Arizona that brings together law enforcement from the two states each year. Pavón was in Tucson last week for an event hosted by the U.S. Marshals Service to honor him and others for their work in capturing fugitives.
Luis Noriega, the Mexico investigative liaison for the U.S. Marshals Service in Arizona, met with Pávon on Saturday in Tucson and said Pavón didn't express any concerns about his safety. Noriega described Pávon as personable, friendly, professional, compassionate and a man of honor.
"He was a good person, I can't say enough good things about him," Noriega said. "It's a tragic loss for all of us."
The assassination occurred at 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Marqués de Cima Hotel, about 2 1/2 miles south of the border off Avenida Alvaro Obregon, which runs south from the downtown Dennis DeConcini port of entry and out of the city.
Pavón was getting out of the car when gunmen in the upper part of the building opened fire and launched grenades, the release said. The Marqués de Cima is a five-story hotel on the west side of Avenida Álvaro Obregón.
Pavón was still alive when he was taken to a hospital but died a few minutes later. Three other officers were wounded in the attack and are in stable condition.
Pavón and other law-enforcement officials from out of town were staying in the hotel. Most of them were in their rooms when the attack occurred, the attorney general news release said.
The attack prompted Mexican authorities to stop allowing traffic from the U.S. into Mexico through the Nogales ports of entry for about two hours Sunday night, said Brian Levin, Customs and Border Protection spokesman. Traffic into the U.S. never stopped, but it was delayed for a while, Levin said.
State police have been in Nogales for the past two months working in a special operation along with city and federal police to combat violence fueled by drug cartels that has reached unprecedented levels this year in the border city.
There had been 76 homicides recorded in Nogales through September, the latest figures available, surpassing the 2007 total of 52 and more than doubling the 2006 total of 35. Most of the killing has been attributed to feuding drug cartels.
The bloodshed landed Nogales for the first time on the U.S. State Department's new "travel alert" issued on Oct. 14 alongside notoriously dangerous cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo. The alert — which cautions U.S. citizens about ongoing issues but doesn't instruct them not to travel in Mexico — mentions Nogales as one of the cities that "recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues."
On Oct. 23, violence returned to the city when state police killed 10 organized-crime gunmen during a rolling gunbattle that went past supermarkets and malls and down side streets before ending in an industrial park.
Some have theorized the assassination of Pavón could be in retaliation for that shootout, in which Pavón's state police units played the lead role.
"It could have been payback," said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada, speaking without direct knowledge of the slaying. But, officially, the motive behind the attack on Pavón remains unclear.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials in Arizona couldn't talk about the motives behind the shooting since it's part of an ongoing investigation and U.S. Marshal Gonzales said he has no knowledge of why it happened.
El Imparcial newspaper in Sonora speculated that a shootout Saturday in Nogales that led to the arrest of four gunmen, one of whom was wounded, could have triggered the attack on Pavón. Police arrested the four and seized six rifles, ammunition, magazines, bulletproof vests and helmets and their vehicle.
Whatever the motive, the assassination of Pavón has U.S. officials more concerned than ever about their counterparts across the border. "It's got to be frustrating for them over there," Estrada said. "They are trying to make an impact on what's happening and this is a major setback in those efforts."
The cartels are working hard to establish their power in response to the government crackdown, Gonzales said.
"This is a power struggle," Gonzales said. "They are sending a statement that 'we are in charge and we are in power' and trying to get the government to back down by gunning down high-ranking police officers."
On Monday afternoon, Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours said Mexican President Felipe Calderón informed him that 300 federal agents will be sent to join the crackdown in Nogales, Hermosillo and Caborca, El Imparcial reported. They'll join 100 federal agents already in Nogales working in the three level operation.
Pávon, who was married with two children, took over as chief of the state police on March 6, 2007, according to El Imparcial. He was known for a Christmas Eve event he hosted each year in Hermosillo for poor children, the newspaper said.
He had worked previously as an investigator for the Sonoran Investigative police in Guaymas, Ciudad Obregón, Puerto Peñasco and Navojoa, among others.
The U.S. Marshals Service spoke with Pávon nearly once a week to stay in touch on ongoing investigations regrading fugitives, Gonzales said. "He was a great ally working with us on detaining fugitives out of Mexico," he said
Monday, November 3, 2008
Vote for the 2nd Amendment
With guns in our hands, we can NEVER be placed back into bondage. Our Founding Fathers knew this and so do our modern politicians.
McCain is no hero of gun owners and the Second Amendment.
However, Barack Hussein Obama and Joe “Assault Weapons Ban” Biden are notorious enemies of gun owners and the freedom a gun in your hand guarantees.
Anyone who owns a gun should understand this: Ultimately, your freedom and your ability to protect your family rests in keeping your gun in YOUR hands and not the hands of the government.
There are 80 million gun owners in this country. Collectively, if we voted the Litmus Test of Freedom, we could control America’s destiny.
For this reason and this reason alone, for ALL 80 million gun owners there is really only one choice on November 4 and that choice is Sarah Palin.
The full article can be found at Frontsight
Die with your boots on...
...
Straight Talk from the "Gipper"
H/T: Bash at Dollard Nation.
Here's the link to Bash's post.
Here's the link to Bash's post.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn’t been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, “We’ve never had it so good.”
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we’ve just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: [up] man’s old — old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the “Great Society,” or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they’ve been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, “The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.” Another voice says, “The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state.” Or, “Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century.” Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as “our moral teacher and our leader,” and he says he is “hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document.” He must “be freed,” so that he “can do for us” what he knows “is best.” And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as “meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.”
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as “the masses.” This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, “the full power of centralized government” — this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
Now, we have no better example of this than government’s involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming — that’s regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we’ve spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don’t grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he’ll find out that we’ve had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He’ll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He’ll find that they’ve also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn’t keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there’s been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There’s now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can’t tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how — who are farmers to know what’s best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a “more compatible use of the land.” The President tells us he’s now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we’ve only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they’ve taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we’ve sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.
They’ve just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you’re depressed, lie down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they’re going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer — and they’ve had almost 30 years of it — shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we’re told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We’re spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you’ll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we’d be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
Now — so now we declare “war on poverty,” or “You, too, can be a Bobby Baker.” Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we’re spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have — and remember, this new program doesn’t replace any, it just duplicates existing programs — do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn’t duplicated. This is the youth feature. We’re now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we’re going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we’re going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who’d come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She’s eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who’d already done that very thing.
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we’re always “against” things — we’re never “for” anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.
Now — we’re for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we’ve accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we’re against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They’ve called it “insurance” to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term “insurance” to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they’re doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary — his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he’s 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can’t put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they’re due — that the cupboard isn’t bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can’t we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn’t you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we’re for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we’re against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They’ve come to the end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar’s worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we’re for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we’re against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world’s population. I think we’re against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we’re for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we’re against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We’re helping 107. We’ve spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments’ programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees — federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation’s work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man’s property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, “If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States.” I think that’s exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn’t the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died — because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.
Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the — or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men — that we’re to choose just between two personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy — and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I’ve been privileged to know him “when.” I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I’ve never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn’t work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, “Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such,” and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he’d load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, “There aren’t many left who care what happens to her. I’d like her to know I care.” This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, “There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start.” This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, unless we realize we’re in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then — when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this — this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits — not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
Thank you very much.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, “We’ve never had it so good.”
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we’ve just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: [up] man’s old — old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the “Great Society,” or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they’ve been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, “The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.” Another voice says, “The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state.” Or, “Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century.” Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as “our moral teacher and our leader,” and he says he is “hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document.” He must “be freed,” so that he “can do for us” what he knows “is best.” And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as “meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.”
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as “the masses.” This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, “the full power of centralized government” — this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
Now, we have no better example of this than government’s involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming — that’s regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we’ve spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don’t grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he’ll find out that we’ve had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He’ll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He’ll find that they’ve also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn’t keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there’s been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There’s now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can’t tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how — who are farmers to know what’s best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a “more compatible use of the land.” The President tells us he’s now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we’ve only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they’ve taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we’ve sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.
They’ve just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you’re depressed, lie down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they’re going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer — and they’ve had almost 30 years of it — shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we’re told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We’re spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you’ll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we’d be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
Now — so now we declare “war on poverty,” or “You, too, can be a Bobby Baker.” Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we’re spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have — and remember, this new program doesn’t replace any, it just duplicates existing programs — do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn’t duplicated. This is the youth feature. We’re now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we’re going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we’re going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who’d come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She’s eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who’d already done that very thing.
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we’re always “against” things — we’re never “for” anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.
Now — we’re for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we’ve accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we’re against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They’ve called it “insurance” to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term “insurance” to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they’re doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary — his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he’s 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can’t put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they’re due — that the cupboard isn’t bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can’t we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn’t you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we’re for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we’re against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They’ve come to the end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar’s worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we’re for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we’re against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world’s population. I think we’re against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we’re for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we’re against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We’re helping 107. We’ve spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments’ programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees — federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation’s work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man’s property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, “If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States.” I think that’s exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn’t the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died — because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.
Now it doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the — or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men — that we’re to choose just between two personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy — and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I’ve been privileged to know him “when.” I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I’ve never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn’t work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, “Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such,” and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he’d load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, “There aren’t many left who care what happens to her. I’d like her to know I care.” This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, “There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start.” This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I’ve discussed academic, unless we realize we’re in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy “accommodation.” And they say if we’ll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he’ll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we’re willing to make a deal with your slave masters.” Alexander Hamilton said, “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.
Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then — when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he’s heard voices pleading for “peace at any price” or “better Red than dead,” or as one commentator put it, he’d rather “live on his knees than die on his feet.” And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” “There is a point beyond which they must not advance.” And this — this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said, “The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits — not animals.” And he said, “There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
Thank you very much.
No doubt...we miss you Mr. President. I don't see anyone who can fill those boots today....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)