I don't often do a copy and paste job, mainly because unlike Joe Biden and barack hussein obama, I have integrity. But this piece of fantastic work by Lowell Ponte at Newsmax is so important that it has to get out. The left wing liberal drive-by media doesn't want you to know what a danger obama is, but there are truths that have to get out. Truths that show what obama is, what he believes in, what he has done, and the shocking associations he has kept. Guilt by association? When the history is as long and consistent as obama's, you bet. Because at the very least, they show judgement that is frightening. At the most, they show someone who is too dangerous to take a chance on. Not in the world we face today. What Mister Ponte has done has exposed the lies, half-truths, and machiavellian extremes that obama will go to get elected. Just to be completely honest and upfront, the following is not my work. I had nothing to do with it. I am simply sharing it.
'Smears' About Obama Largely True
Monday, October 20, 2008 9:32 PM
By: Lowell Ponte
The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of smears and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.
But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language, and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.
Obamas www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama's ideological allies are not dominant.
These "smears" and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate's answers.
FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama's critics as pushing misleading research and distorted claims because they are ideologues busy spreading a pack of lies about Barack.
In a section of the site titled, 'Who's Behind the Smears?' visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them.
The people and groups named are real and are members of Washington's small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the Clinton 1992 Campaign.
This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the smears against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him.
Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama's ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their veracity. Here's what we found:
Claim No. 1: Obama's campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners.
Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from The Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years, the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising.
Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.
Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama's allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival Exxon John McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain.
The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law, claims the Obama site, including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.
However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won't release their names and addresses.
McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200.
Critics argue that the other half of Obama's campaign haul the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests came in a small flood of anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.
Claim No. 2: Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s, but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated.
It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren.
Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader. (Obama is currently saying it was not the first event. There is no dispute that one of Obama's first political events in his first run for public office was held in Ayers' home.)
There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon the Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice, and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, 'In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.'
Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques . . .� says the Obama Web site.
Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who, as recently as 2001, said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more.
Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media's and Obama's judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?
Claim No. 3: Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae.
John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads, says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines whose corruption played a key role in the current financial crisis.
But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as members of Mr. Obama's political circle.
Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site's present-tense claim that he 'doesn't [not didn't] take advice from Fannie Mae execs' is technically, if deceptively, true.
Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama's campaign.
And despite Obama's lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama's Web site leaves all this unmentioned.
Claim No. 4: Obama has close ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud.
Obama's site says the candidate was never an ACORN employee and that ACORN 'was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.'
In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell calling him a 'discredited Republican voter-suppression guru' for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, among the largest radical groups in the United States.
As Newsmax has documented in ["Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past,"] Obama's Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never 'hired' to work as a trainer for ACORN's leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003.
ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN.
As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November, "[When] I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it."
Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as 'a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now' after interviewing its national director.
The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN's 'family of organizations.'
Over the years, ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This, in theory, could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November's election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.
Claim No. 5: Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights.
"During Barack's career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen," says Obama's Web site, "while doing everything he could to protect children" including his own two daughters "from illegal gun violence."
But the National Rifle Association, it continues, "is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them."
Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September ["NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops,"] to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights.
If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama 'would be the most anti-gun president in American history.'
Claim No. 6: A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions.
The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of 'radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.'
But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were 'born alive.' Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist's decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival.
Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food, or warmth.
Obama's Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that 'none of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.'
True, but Obama's site does not quote the rest of Winkel's statement: '[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.'
Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero.
How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate, he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification.
"Look, I got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old," Obama has said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Claim No. 7: Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits.
Doubts about Obama's true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe.
A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama's visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: "As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off . . . He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service . . . I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Obama]."
Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: "After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong." He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors.
Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl. But as The Washington Post reported, Obama canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media.
Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC's Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.
Claim No. 8: Barack Obama is a Muslim.
FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam.
In fact, Barack Hussein Obama's Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious.
His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Quran. According to a childhood friend, Obama occasionally attended services at a local mosque.
Obama's Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in The Baltimore Sun) headlined "Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid." Middle East expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama's Muslim faith and says he is 'lying' when he says he was never a Muslim.
It's important to note that Obama's Web site does not say he was never a Muslim. But in the past, Obama's site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used.
Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.
Claim No. 9: As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans.
Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring.
The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains.
What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world's second-highest business taxes.
"Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases" said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. "They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they're just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline . . . or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don't worry. It's not going to affect you."
During his campaign, Obama has promised to raise various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, and new taxes on gasoline.
He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raise taxes on most Americans. By letting the Bush cuts expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.
Claim No. 10: Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency.
The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United States as 'completely false' and 'groundless.'
As proof, the Obama's campaign has produced a 'certificate of live birth' from Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for a certified birth certificate.
No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which is blacked out on copies of it on the Obama site.
Skeptics note that Obama's 'Father's Race' is identified on this document as 'African,' a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been 'Negro.'
Former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama's paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States.
If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
What is Fantasy Trek?
More Than Just a Game. It's a Star Trek Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
From "The Patriot Post" Notes on Presidential Character
This is the complete text of an email I received from "The Patriot Post" on the subject of Presidential character. It is really a message for loyal Democrats whose party has been highjacked by radical elements like Barack Obama. Read on. And for my conservative friends, take heart. Obama's numbers are slipping, just as the truth is starting to stick.
Here is the message, courtesy of "The Patriot Post":
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." —Samuel Adams
In his Inaugural Address on 20 January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy closed his remarks with these famous words: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
With those words, JFK, considered by many to be the most exemplary leader of the Democrat Party in the 20th Century, asked Americans to put country first, a bedrock principle of the Party until the last few decades.
However today, the current slate of Democrats have turned Jack Kennedy's national challenge on end, essentially proclaiming, "ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country."
In 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said for all to hear, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Has his dream been realized, or have Democrat leaders divided us up into constituency groups, where we are judged by all manner of ethnicity and special interests rather than the individual and national character King envisioned?
Kennedy and King had it right, but the Democrat Party has squandered their great legacy, and betrayed us, moreover enslaving many Americans as dependant wards of the state.
This is not the Democrat Party envisioned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Harry Truman, much less its founder, Thomas Jefferson, who would not recognize even the most vestigial elements of his once-noble Party. (This dramatic transition is evident in the Democrat Party Platforms from Kennedy to Obama.)
When asked why he left the Democrat Party, perhaps the most famous of former Democrats said, "I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me." That was Ronald Reagan, who earned the respect and support of an enormous number of Democrats during his presidency. His observation, "the Party left me," has never been more true than today.
For several months, we have heard and observed two presidential candidates, centrist Republican John McCain and liberal Democrat Barack Obama. It should by now, be obvious to all of us who put our country first, which of these candidates possess the high qualities of a statesman, and the prerequisite moral and civic virtues for an American president.
Unfortunately, too many of my fellow Americans have difficulty distinguishing these qualities.
Every four years, at the peak of presidential election cycles, we're told by the talkingheads and the party hacks that "this election is the most important in our lifetimes." This time, however, they may be right. These are indeed perilous times.
Our nation is facing crises on several critical fronts, including an historic economic disaster, the resolution of which will require the steady hand of a statesman in possession of outstanding character — character that has been honed over his lifetime, character that is proven consistent with our nation's legacy of liberty and equality.
That reformed Democrat, Ronald Reagan, wrote, "The character that takes command in moments of crucial choices has already been determined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly unimportant moments. It has been determined by all the 'little' choices of years past — by all those times when the voice of conscience was at war with the voice of temptation, [which was] whispering the lie that 'it really doesn't matter.' It has been determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed far away — the decision that, piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of laziness; habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity — or dishonor and shame."
For the first and final word on the necessary character traits the next president should possess, let's return to our foundation, our Founders, those who risked all to proclaim our individual rights and responsibilities as ordained by God, and outlined them in our Declaration of Independence and its subordinate exposition, our Republic's Constitution.
Our Founders wrote at length about character, both of those who seek high office (or, rather, those that high office seeks), and those who elect them. Here are but a few excerpts in their own words.
John Adams: "Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. ... If we suffer [the minds of young people] to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. ... We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ... We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."
Samuel Adams: "Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters. ... If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation. ... [N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. ... No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. ... Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. ... Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson: "It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution. ... If a nation expects to be ignorant — and free — in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. ... The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. ... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
George Washington: "No compact among men ... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other. ...[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted [early in life] are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. ... The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world. ...[W]here is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths...? Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness — these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."
At the end of the Revolution, when our Founders were endeavoring "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," Founding brothers Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and our Constitution's author, James Madison, wrote The Federalist Papers, its most authentic and comprehensive explication.
In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton warned, "Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."
Sound familiar?
In No. 10, Madison cautions, "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm," and insisted in No. 57, "The aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers, men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous, whilst they continue to hold their public trust."
Madison's Supreme Court nominee, Justice Joseph Story, wrote, "Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
The Founders thus warned of the perils posed by the candidate who lacks political courage; the candidate who tells us everything we want to hear.
In November 1800, John Adams, in his fourth year as president, wrote to his wife Abigail, "I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!"
We should all pray likewise, now, today, this minute.
As Adams understood, "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
Almost two centuries later, Ronald Reagan reiterated, "Freedom is ... never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time."
So, what of the current generation of voters, and the two presidential candidates?
On 4 November, one of these candidates will receive a majority of electoral votes, and in January, be seated as our next president. But for sure, this election is much more than a referendum on the two candidates; it is a referendum on the ability of Americans to discern between one candidate who possesses the character and integrity of a statesman, which the office of president requires, and one who does not.
At this pivotal moment in our nation's history, let's hope that a majority of us have sufficient courage and character to make that distinction, and vote on what we know rather than how we feel.
Let's put country first.
For more information on the character of the presidential candidates, link to The McCain record and The Obama record.
Please forward these insights to your family, friends and associates.
What is Fantasy Trek?
More Than Just a Game. It's a Star Trek Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Here is the message, courtesy of "The Patriot Post":
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." —Samuel Adams
In his Inaugural Address on 20 January, 1961, President John F. Kennedy closed his remarks with these famous words: "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
With those words, JFK, considered by many to be the most exemplary leader of the Democrat Party in the 20th Century, asked Americans to put country first, a bedrock principle of the Party until the last few decades.
However today, the current slate of Democrats have turned Jack Kennedy's national challenge on end, essentially proclaiming, "ask what your country can do for you, not what you can do for your country."
In 1963, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said for all to hear, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Has his dream been realized, or have Democrat leaders divided us up into constituency groups, where we are judged by all manner of ethnicity and special interests rather than the individual and national character King envisioned?
Kennedy and King had it right, but the Democrat Party has squandered their great legacy, and betrayed us, moreover enslaving many Americans as dependant wards of the state.
This is not the Democrat Party envisioned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Harry Truman, much less its founder, Thomas Jefferson, who would not recognize even the most vestigial elements of his once-noble Party. (This dramatic transition is evident in the Democrat Party Platforms from Kennedy to Obama.)
When asked why he left the Democrat Party, perhaps the most famous of former Democrats said, "I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me." That was Ronald Reagan, who earned the respect and support of an enormous number of Democrats during his presidency. His observation, "the Party left me," has never been more true than today.
For several months, we have heard and observed two presidential candidates, centrist Republican John McCain and liberal Democrat Barack Obama. It should by now, be obvious to all of us who put our country first, which of these candidates possess the high qualities of a statesman, and the prerequisite moral and civic virtues for an American president.
Unfortunately, too many of my fellow Americans have difficulty distinguishing these qualities.
Every four years, at the peak of presidential election cycles, we're told by the talkingheads and the party hacks that "this election is the most important in our lifetimes." This time, however, they may be right. These are indeed perilous times.
Our nation is facing crises on several critical fronts, including an historic economic disaster, the resolution of which will require the steady hand of a statesman in possession of outstanding character — character that has been honed over his lifetime, character that is proven consistent with our nation's legacy of liberty and equality.
That reformed Democrat, Ronald Reagan, wrote, "The character that takes command in moments of crucial choices has already been determined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly unimportant moments. It has been determined by all the 'little' choices of years past — by all those times when the voice of conscience was at war with the voice of temptation, [which was] whispering the lie that 'it really doesn't matter.' It has been determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed far away — the decision that, piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of laziness; habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity — or dishonor and shame."
For the first and final word on the necessary character traits the next president should possess, let's return to our foundation, our Founders, those who risked all to proclaim our individual rights and responsibilities as ordained by God, and outlined them in our Declaration of Independence and its subordinate exposition, our Republic's Constitution.
Our Founders wrote at length about character, both of those who seek high office (or, rather, those that high office seeks), and those who elect them. Here are but a few excerpts in their own words.
John Adams: "Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. ... If we suffer [the minds of young people] to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. ... We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ... We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."
Samuel Adams: "Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters. ... If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation. ... [N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. ... No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. ... Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. ... Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."
Thomas Jefferson: "It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution. ... If a nation expects to be ignorant — and free — in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. ... The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail. ... An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
George Washington: "No compact among men ... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other. ...[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted [early in life] are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous. ... The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world. ...[W]here is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths...? Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness — these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."
At the end of the Revolution, when our Founders were endeavoring "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," Founding brothers Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and our Constitution's author, James Madison, wrote The Federalist Papers, its most authentic and comprehensive explication.
In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton warned, "Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."
Sound familiar?
In No. 10, Madison cautions, "Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm," and insisted in No. 57, "The aim of every political Constitution is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers, men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous, whilst they continue to hold their public trust."
Madison's Supreme Court nominee, Justice Joseph Story, wrote, "Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."
The Founders thus warned of the perils posed by the candidate who lacks political courage; the candidate who tells us everything we want to hear.
In November 1800, John Adams, in his fourth year as president, wrote to his wife Abigail, "I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!"
We should all pray likewise, now, today, this minute.
As Adams understood, "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
Almost two centuries later, Ronald Reagan reiterated, "Freedom is ... never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it's gone and gone for a long, long time."
So, what of the current generation of voters, and the two presidential candidates?
On 4 November, one of these candidates will receive a majority of electoral votes, and in January, be seated as our next president. But for sure, this election is much more than a referendum on the two candidates; it is a referendum on the ability of Americans to discern between one candidate who possesses the character and integrity of a statesman, which the office of president requires, and one who does not.
At this pivotal moment in our nation's history, let's hope that a majority of us have sufficient courage and character to make that distinction, and vote on what we know rather than how we feel.
Let's put country first.
For more information on the character of the presidential candidates, link to The McCain record and The Obama record.
Please forward these insights to your family, friends and associates.
What is Fantasy Trek?
More Than Just a Game. It's a Star Trek Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Lucky Me! I Just Found Out I'm a Racist!
I was waiting for the laundromat to open when two black guys walked up with a grocery cart (I'll just point out here and now that this was a stolen grocery cart. They don't sell them to customers, so if it says 'Albertson's' on it and it isn't in the Albertson's parking lot, it's stolen. Whether they stole it from the store or stole it second hand, it's still stolen) full of laundry. That's okay. But as soon as they arrive, they start launching into a diatribe about how wonderful mister barack hussein obama is, and how he's pure and holy, and how he graduated from Harvard which is the best school in the country, according to these learned young grocery cart thieves. It used to be elitest and white and evil until mister obama went there. What would we do without him? I suppose that these fine young upstanding grocery cart thieves finally have a reason to be proud of their country. Well that's good. Sadly for me, (according to these thieves), if I disagree with them, I'm either rich or racist. And since I'm not rich, I must be racist.
What is it that tells me that these two thieves are right? Because they didn't resort to any personal attacks. Nope, they stayed on issues. Issues like everyone is Alaska is drunk and stupid (and white trash, according the non-racist, sensitive, caring gentleman). He looked straight at me and my wife when he said that, just to make sure we understood. Gosh, lucky us. Issues like being held in a prisoner of war camp makes you crazy. Issues like black people finally getting what's coming to them. Issues like Bush is a criminal and finally obama is going to throw him in jail. And it was refreshingly lacking in such personal attacks like obama's voting record, or the racist pastors or terrorists he calls friends, or the fact that he has no problem with throwing unwanted babies in the garbage, or that he thinks that the middle class is bitter and clinging to guns and religion, I guess, because their lives are so empty. Nothing about the definition of life being above his pay grade.
I'm just glad that these two fine young thieves were kind enough to teach me that I'm a racist. Maybe next time I can be a thug and a punk who lives like a leech off of tax dollars provided by hard working non-thieves who actually own an alarm clock and a work ethic. Maybe I can be someone who can scoff at a hero who sat in a POW camp and had his arms broken every day. Maybe I can steal grocery carts and bellow and bluster with all of dignity of a two year old. Maybe I can be lucky enough to be such a pathetic excuse for a human being that I'll support any crook that promises to steal from hard-working people to enable my drug habit. But for now, really, I'm just excited that these two shining examples of humanity have taught me that I'm a racist. WooHoo!
What is Fantasy Trek?
More Than Just a Game. It's a Star Trek Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
What is it that tells me that these two thieves are right? Because they didn't resort to any personal attacks. Nope, they stayed on issues. Issues like everyone is Alaska is drunk and stupid (and white trash, according the non-racist, sensitive, caring gentleman). He looked straight at me and my wife when he said that, just to make sure we understood. Gosh, lucky us. Issues like being held in a prisoner of war camp makes you crazy. Issues like black people finally getting what's coming to them. Issues like Bush is a criminal and finally obama is going to throw him in jail. And it was refreshingly lacking in such personal attacks like obama's voting record, or the racist pastors or terrorists he calls friends, or the fact that he has no problem with throwing unwanted babies in the garbage, or that he thinks that the middle class is bitter and clinging to guns and religion, I guess, because their lives are so empty. Nothing about the definition of life being above his pay grade.
I'm just glad that these two fine young thieves were kind enough to teach me that I'm a racist. Maybe next time I can be a thug and a punk who lives like a leech off of tax dollars provided by hard working non-thieves who actually own an alarm clock and a work ethic. Maybe I can be someone who can scoff at a hero who sat in a POW camp and had his arms broken every day. Maybe I can steal grocery carts and bellow and bluster with all of dignity of a two year old. Maybe I can be lucky enough to be such a pathetic excuse for a human being that I'll support any crook that promises to steal from hard-working people to enable my drug habit. But for now, really, I'm just excited that these two shining examples of humanity have taught me that I'm a racist. WooHoo!
What is Fantasy Trek?
More Than Just a Game. It's a Star Trek Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Just What Is a Barack Hussein Obama
Brian Williams has just finished telling me again why I should vote for mister obama. But fortunately, I have a brain, so I didn't fall for it. Mister Wlliams, I don't have any business ties to any Islamic republics. Can you say the same? No. You work for NBC. NBC is owned by GE. GE has business ties with Iran. One less reason to give you any credibilty.
Mister Obama has spent decades in the company of people like Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Wright, and William Ayers. He has marched in lockstep with avowed Marxists. Members of the American Socialist Party. His voting record (not counting all of those 'above my pay-grade' 'PRESENT' votes), is among the most liberal in the history of congress. He has voted 94 times to raise taxes. In Illinois he made no effort to stop the practice of throwing out and leaving in the trash failed abortions. That is as bad as it sounds. When an abortion failed, and a living (but unwanted) person was pulled out of a woman, it was thrown out. In the trash. And mister obama doesn't have a problem with this. The question of whether or not a person who is born ACCIDENTALLY, breathing air and aware of its surroundings is worthy of more than being dumped in the trash next to half-eaten burritos and empty coke bottles is above mister obama's paygrade. Good God man, just what is important enough to you to warrant taking a stand on? If you get elected, how many times can we expect you to vote 'present'? And if we have another 9/11, would the response be above your paygrade? You like to say we should concentrate on issues and not personal attacks. Well, the biggest issue I worry about is the very real prospect of having a president who makes Bill Clinton (hell, who makes Hillary Clinton) look like Ronald Reagan. Your solution is an all-powerful state that regulates every aspect of our lives and takes our money to redistribute according the state. I actually have faith in the love of country that most liberals profess. I think they're misguided and dangerous, but still patriotic. You are, in my opinion, not a patriot. You are a dangerous liberal marxist who is in a position to do damage to this country that would have made Stalin blush. Where do I get that? I get that from mister obama's friend Frank Marshall Davis and the rest of his communist friends in college. Not counting the year that spent 'pretty much in a daze'.
That is what a barack hussein obama is.
What is Fantasy Trek?
The Only 'Star Trek: The Experience' You Can Still Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Mister Obama has spent decades in the company of people like Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Wright, and William Ayers. He has marched in lockstep with avowed Marxists. Members of the American Socialist Party. His voting record (not counting all of those 'above my pay-grade' 'PRESENT' votes), is among the most liberal in the history of congress. He has voted 94 times to raise taxes. In Illinois he made no effort to stop the practice of throwing out and leaving in the trash failed abortions. That is as bad as it sounds. When an abortion failed, and a living (but unwanted) person was pulled out of a woman, it was thrown out. In the trash. And mister obama doesn't have a problem with this. The question of whether or not a person who is born ACCIDENTALLY, breathing air and aware of its surroundings is worthy of more than being dumped in the trash next to half-eaten burritos and empty coke bottles is above mister obama's paygrade. Good God man, just what is important enough to you to warrant taking a stand on? If you get elected, how many times can we expect you to vote 'present'? And if we have another 9/11, would the response be above your paygrade? You like to say we should concentrate on issues and not personal attacks. Well, the biggest issue I worry about is the very real prospect of having a president who makes Bill Clinton (hell, who makes Hillary Clinton) look like Ronald Reagan. Your solution is an all-powerful state that regulates every aspect of our lives and takes our money to redistribute according the state. I actually have faith in the love of country that most liberals profess. I think they're misguided and dangerous, but still patriotic. You are, in my opinion, not a patriot. You are a dangerous liberal marxist who is in a position to do damage to this country that would have made Stalin blush. Where do I get that? I get that from mister obama's friend Frank Marshall Davis and the rest of his communist friends in college. Not counting the year that spent 'pretty much in a daze'.
That is what a barack hussein obama is.
What is Fantasy Trek?
The Only 'Star Trek: The Experience' You Can Still Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The 700 Billion Dollar Cr@p Sandwich
John Boehner had it right when he called the bailout a cr@p sandwich, and Conan O'brien ('s writers) had even more right when he called it a cr@p sandwich with cheese. Let's look at this for a second, and without the liberal blinders on. This problem started in earnest in 1992 when Mister Clinton had the great idea to sell houses to low-income voters who couldn't afford them. The records are there. Here are a few links that show just what I'm talking about:
From The New York Times in 1999: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9c0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people..."
From the New York Post: Alarms and Denial (http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/09262008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/alarms__denial_130763.htm)
Bloomberg Financial News: "How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis" (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0)
YouTube: Democrats in their own words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs)
YouTube: Burning Down the House (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_597487)
YouTube: Obama Ranks Second In Freddie/Fannie Contributions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_HlpZ8azA&feature=related)
I'm curious as to why Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, and Katie Couric aren't talking about this, but I'm really angry that McCain isn't talking about it. I understand that sticking to his word (unlike Mister Obama) means he doesn't have unlimited funds for unlimited commercials, but unless he is waiting for an October surprise, he is sitting on something that could not only spread a little truth on the campaign (and make a few bitter, aged, liberal mouthpieces even more bitter), but keep a very bad man out of a position of power we can't afford to give to him. It was the clumsy hand of government that got us into this mess (not an opinion, a fact), and the clumsy hand of government is not going to get us out. The clumsy hand of government has never done us a favor. They turned victory into defeat in Vietnam. They convinced the Soviets to go into Afghanistan, resulting in the Taliban and a country-sized safe haven for Al Qaeda. They pulled troops back when we were on the verge of catching Bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains. They failed to put adequate troops into Iraq when the military knew what was needed. Now they're going to put $700 billion of our money into a broken system and hope that it works. Of course, they say that taxpayers actually have a chance to make money on the deal. As if they're actually going to cut us a check if this scheme turns a profit. That was the best laugh I've had in a long time. But at the same time I'm really insulted by this piece of BS handed to us by the drive-by media, the minions of the liberal elite. The most feared words in the American lexicon are "We're from the government and we're here to help*, and that fact has never been more true. This cr@p sandwich with cheese is going to cost us more, I think, (in money, anyway), than the Iraq war, and the best anyone can say is "we hope it works". So if it doesn't, who will be grilled by a committee? Who gets to explain why to the American people? Who gets fired? The fact is, all of you place-holders on Capitol Hill, there is a limit to how much money we'll give you to further screw up our country. Unless you forgot, you are actually our employees, and at some point we're going to get sick of you bungling job after job after job. I know of no other profession (aside from maybe meteorologist) that allows you to be wrong so consistently and still call yourself an expert. There is no question that George W Bush has historically bad approval ratings, but he doesn't come close to the pathetic ratings that Congress has earned.
What is Fantasy Trek?
The Only 'Star Trek: The Experience' You Can Still Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
From The New York Times in 1999: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9c0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all) "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people..."
From the New York Post: Alarms and Denial (http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/09262008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/alarms__denial_130763.htm)
Bloomberg Financial News: "How the Democrats Created the Financial Crisis" (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0)
YouTube: Democrats in their own words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs)
YouTube: Burning Down the House (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_597487)
YouTube: Obama Ranks Second In Freddie/Fannie Contributions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-_HlpZ8azA&feature=related)
I'm curious as to why Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, and Katie Couric aren't talking about this, but I'm really angry that McCain isn't talking about it. I understand that sticking to his word (unlike Mister Obama) means he doesn't have unlimited funds for unlimited commercials, but unless he is waiting for an October surprise, he is sitting on something that could not only spread a little truth on the campaign (and make a few bitter, aged, liberal mouthpieces even more bitter), but keep a very bad man out of a position of power we can't afford to give to him. It was the clumsy hand of government that got us into this mess (not an opinion, a fact), and the clumsy hand of government is not going to get us out. The clumsy hand of government has never done us a favor. They turned victory into defeat in Vietnam. They convinced the Soviets to go into Afghanistan, resulting in the Taliban and a country-sized safe haven for Al Qaeda. They pulled troops back when we were on the verge of catching Bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains. They failed to put adequate troops into Iraq when the military knew what was needed. Now they're going to put $700 billion of our money into a broken system and hope that it works. Of course, they say that taxpayers actually have a chance to make money on the deal. As if they're actually going to cut us a check if this scheme turns a profit. That was the best laugh I've had in a long time. But at the same time I'm really insulted by this piece of BS handed to us by the drive-by media, the minions of the liberal elite. The most feared words in the American lexicon are "We're from the government and we're here to help*, and that fact has never been more true. This cr@p sandwich with cheese is going to cost us more, I think, (in money, anyway), than the Iraq war, and the best anyone can say is "we hope it works". So if it doesn't, who will be grilled by a committee? Who gets to explain why to the American people? Who gets fired? The fact is, all of you place-holders on Capitol Hill, there is a limit to how much money we'll give you to further screw up our country. Unless you forgot, you are actually our employees, and at some point we're going to get sick of you bungling job after job after job. I know of no other profession (aside from maybe meteorologist) that allows you to be wrong so consistently and still call yourself an expert. There is no question that George W Bush has historically bad approval ratings, but he doesn't come close to the pathetic ratings that Congress has earned.
What is Fantasy Trek?
The Only 'Star Trek: The Experience' You Can Still Experience
http://fantasytrek.blogspot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
