Stupid Things I've Heard Today

You know, the cheap version of that stuff that men take so they can get aroused? The upstanding (second-rate) product that also happens to inhabit the subject header of 90% of spam messages in the world. Yeah. So in the little almost whispered list of potential debilitating side-effects (nausea, vomiting... hmmm, sexy), they say 'don't use if you're taking nitrates for chest pains'. Okay, chest pains in this case equals prone to heart attack. And just a suggestion. If you're prone to heart attacks, maybe you should move an erection down on your  priority list.

Here's another one. Nutra System shows these over-the-hill sports stars talking about how you can 'eat like a man and still lose weight'. Again, if you think that you have to eat what some blowhard on TV tells you to feel like a man, a diet is not going to help.

And I'm sure there's more

Obama the Racist (among other things)

The subject header may seem strange, but really, what other word sums up
this person? Nothing really does it justice. He lies to us regarding NAFTA
during the primary, and sends his henchman to Canada to say, don't worry if
Obama objects to NAFTA, he's just saying it to get elected. He spends 20
years worshipping in a church that is led by a preacher who hates white
people and the country. And he doesn't see a problem with that, for 20
years, until someone points it out to him on youtube. There is no outrage.
Hillary refuses to exploit the situation, so no doubt didn't deserve to win.
Obama says he will stick with limited, verifiable public funding until he
discovers how much more he can get privately. He says he doesn't accept
money from lobbyists and special interest, but he does. He takes money from
labor unions that spend dues paid by members, regardless of the wishes or
political beliefs of those members. He even admits that he's beholden to
those donors. All politicians do it. We all know it. But Obama cannot look
down his nose at others and claim that he won't do the same. If he simply
had a different idea of how to fix the country, I could deal with it. But
his dishonesty just makes him just such a horrible choice to lead anything.
He is smug and elitist, and what's more, he's a racist. By claiming that
"they will try to make you afraid of him because he's black", he is using
his race, and fear of racism to garner support. He is assuming that a white
person (and now that the primary is over, that would have to be a
conservative white person) who doesn't like him must feel that way because
he's black. He can't see past his own color. He is no better than the KKK
because all he sees in himself and others is black and white. Mr Obama, I'm
not afraid of you because you're black. I'm afraid of you because I think
you're the most damgerous candidate for president we've had since.... oh,
1776? Something like that. You have the audacity to look down on the real
muscle of this country, saying that they cling to guns and religion because
we're bitter. I'll tell you why we cling to guns and religion. Because they
are our God-given right. The government cannot grant us these rights any
more that they can give us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. And it was guns and religion that gave us our freedom from
Britain.

Good and Bad Founding Fathers

I've been reading David McCullough's John Adams, and aside from a fantastic
history lesson, I'm getting a picture of our early Congress that is, as hard
as it is to believe, almost as bad as that nest of vipers we have now. I'm
also learning of some of the truly brave men and women who gave us this
opportunity that our representatives now seem to be squandering. Rather than
try to explain each excerpt, I'll just present the words of David McCullough
and John Adams.

...Outraged by Dickinson's insistence on petitions to the King as essential
to restoring peace, even after Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, Adams
had strongly denounced any such step. Like many other delegates, he had been
infuriated by Congress's humble petition of July 8, 1775, the so-called
Olive Branch Petition, that had been Dickinson's major contribution. From
the day he saw with his own eyes what the British had done at Lexington and
Concord, Adams failed to understand how anyone could have any misconception
or naïve hope about what to expect from the British. "Powder and artillery
are the most efficacious, sure and infallible conciliatory measures we can
adopt," Adams wrote privately...

*****

...The greatest minds agreed, Adams continued, that all good government was
republican, and the "true idea" of a republic was "an empire of laws and not
of men," a phrase not original with Adams but that he had borrowed from the
writings of the seventeenth-century philosopher James Harrington. A
government with a single legislative body would never do. There should be a
representative assembly, "an exact portrait in miniature of the people at
large," but it must not have the whole legislative power, for the reason
that like an individual with unchecked power, it could be subject to "fits
of humor, transports of passion, partialities of prejudice." A single
assembly could "grow avaricious . . . exempt itself from burdens . . .
become ambitious and after some time vote itself perpetual."...

******

...But when later that evening a preliminary vote was taken, four colonies
unexpectedly held back, refusing to proclaim independence. The all-important
Pennsylvania delegation, despite popular opinion in Pennsylvania, stood with
John Dickinson and voted no. The New York delegates abstained, saying they
favored the motion but lacked specific instructions. South Carolina, too,
surprisingly, voted no, while Delaware, with only two delegates present, was
divided. The missing Delaware delegate was Caesar Rodney, one of the most
ardent of the independence faction. Where he was or when he might reappear
was unclear, but a rider had been sent racing off to find him. When Edward
Rutledge rescued the moment by moving that a final vote be postponed until
the next day, implying that for the sake of unanimity South Carolina might
change its mind, Adams and the others immediately agreed. For while the nine
colonies supporting independence made a clear majority, it was hardly the
show of solidarity that such a step ought to have.The atmosphere that night
at City Tavern and in the lodging houses of the delegates was extremely
tense. The crux of the matter was the Pennsylvania delegation, for in the
preliminary vote three of the seven Pennsylvania delegates had gone against
John Dickinson and declared in the affirmative, and it was of utmost
interest that one of the three, along with Franklin and John Morton, was
James Wilson, who, though a friend and ally of Dickinson, had switched sides
to vote for independence. The question now was how many of the rest who were
in league with Dickinson would on the morrow continue, in Adams's words, to
"vote point blank against the known and declared sense of their
constituents." To compound the tension that night, word reached Philadelphia
of the sighting off New York of a hundred British ships, the first arrivals
of a fleet that would number over four hundred. Though the record of all
that happened the following day,Tuesday, July 2, is regrettably sparse, it
appears that just as the doors to Congress were about to be closed at the
usual hour of nine o'clock, Caesar Rodney, mud-spattered, "booted and
spurred," made his dramatic entrance. The tall, thin Rodney - the
"oddest-looking man in the world,"Adams once described him - had been made
to appear stranger still, and more to be pitied, by a skin cancer on one
side of his face that he kept hidden behind a scarf of green silk. But, as
Adams had also recognized, Rodney was a man of spirit, of "fire." Almost
unimaginably, he had ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses
several times, to be there in time to cast his vote...

*****

..."Unfaithfulness" was something he could not abide, and in his spells of
gloom he pondered whether the fault was in the times. Unfaithfulness in
public stations is deeply criminal [he wrote to Abigail]. But there is no
encouragement to be faithful. Neither profit, nor honor, nor applause is
acquired by faithfulness. . . . There is too much corruption, even in this
infant age of our Republic. Virtue is not in fashion. Vice is not
infamous...

*****

...Then, just as agreement seemed near, Henry Strachey proposed to amend the
line specifying the American "right" of fishing to read "liberty" of
fishing, to which young Fitzherbert declared the word "right" to be "an
obnoxious expression." The moment was one made for Adams. Rising from his
chair, smoldering with indignation, he addressed the British: Gentlemen, is
there or can there be a clearer right? In former treaties, that of Utrecht
and that of Paris, France and England have claimed the right and used the
word. When God Almighty made the Banks of Newfoundland at 300 leagues
distant from the people of America and at 600 leagues distance from those of
France and England, did he not give as food a right to the former as to the
latter. If Heaven in the Creation have a right, it is ours at least as much
as yours. If occupation, use, and possession have a right, we have it as
clearly as you. If war and blood and treasure give a right, ours is as good
as yours. We have been constantly fighting in Canada, Cape Breton, and Nova
Scotia for the defense of the fishery, and have expanded beyond all
proportion more than you. If then the right cannot be denied, why then
should it not be acknowledged? And put out of dispute? It was settled -
almost. Article III of the treaty would read, "It is agreed that the people
of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take
fish of every kind on the Grand Bank." However, on the matter of taking fish
along the coast of Newfoundland and "all other of his Britannic Majesty's
Dominions in America," the people of the United States were to have the
"liberty," which, insisted the British negotiators, amounted to the same
thing. "We did not think it necessary to contend for a word," wrote a more
mellow John Adams years afterward. By the end of the day there was agreement
on everything. Dining that evening at his hotel with Matthew Ridley,Adams
was in high spirits. Asked if he would have fish, he laughed and declined,
saying he had had "a pretty good meal of them" already that day. Adams
generously praised his fellow negotiators. Franklin, he told Ridley, had
performed "nobly." But to Jay belonged the greatest credit, Adams said. Jay
had played the leading part, Adams felt then and later, never failing to
give Jay credit. The following day, Saturday, November 30, 1782, all parties
made their way through still another damp Paris snowfall, again to Oswald's
quarters at the Grand Hôtel Muscovite for the signing of the preliminary
treaty. Oswald was first to fix his name, followed by the four Americans in
alphabetical order. In effect, the Americans had signed a separate peace
with the British. They had acted in direct violation of both the
French-American alliance and their specific instructions from Congress to
abide by the advice of the French foreign minister. To Adams there was no
conflict in what they had done. The decision to break with the orders from
Congress, and thus break faith with the French, had been clear-cut, the only
honorable course. Congress had left them no choice. Congress had
"prostituted" its own honor by surrendering its sovereignty to the French
Foreign Minister. "It is glory to have broken such infamous orders," Adams
wrote in his diary. "Infamous I say, for so they will be to all
posterity."...

More about Traitors

The last (almost) eight years has seen our government... that body which is
given its power from We The People and which serves at our pleasure, not
serving us. It hasn't worked to represent us, nor has it solved any of the
myriad problems facing us. Indeed, the historic low approval ratings that
Congress has earned make President Bush seem like a rock star. And that is
because they have failed year after year to decrease our dependency on
foreign oil (which is really the cause of so many other problems) by either
increasing domestic production and refinement or by pushing hard for serious
progress for on alternative, sustainable and renewable fuel. I don't mean
ethanol. Ethanol is not much better than oil, because it still burns oil,
but also uses up so much of our farm produce that it creates food shortages.
Indeed, the fixation that the world has with ethanol is beginning to
encroach upon valuable rain forest resources that we can't afford to lose.
We are not going to quit this addiction (and that's what it is) until we
actually learn to stop burning things to make our cars run. What we need is
the courage and the foresight to challenge ourselves to start a revolution
that ends the oil era. We need a moon shot for the new century. In response
to the Soviet's launch of Sputnik, John F Kennedy challenged the nation to
win the space race by landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to
Earth by the end of the sixties. That's what we need. What made it easy for
America (and America's politicians) to take the challenge seriously was the
paranoia... the supposed threat that the communists would drop bombs, or spy
on us from orbit. That's the threat that we have now, even though
particularly the left refuse to recognize it for political reasons. Our
strongest oil-producing ally in the middle east is Saudi Arabia, a kingdom
that has no respect for its citizens, and is one of the largest exporters of
terrorists in the world, and is itself threatened by even more radical
neighbors. So it doesn't matter what happens to the price of oil. We need to
get off of it. And if we must stay on it for a while, we'd better learn to
live off of what we can make ourselves.
Our government has also failed to learn some basic lessons of economics. Tax
cuts are necessary to protect the basic health of our business sector by
giving employers the means to hire and increase production, thereby lowering
prices, even as it helps working class people to keep (and spend and save)
more of their own money, which helps businesses to prosper. Supply side
"Reaganomics" really do work. It has been proven time and time again that
tax increases actually result in an overall loss in tax revenue by reducing
the average income of American workers, while tax cuts have in fact the
opposite effect by giving employers more hiring and production power and
giving consumers higher income and more spending power. But this really only
works if those tax cuts are matched with fiscal responsibility. Every tax
dollar that goes into the government has to treated like a valuable
commodity, because if it isn't spent doing the legitimate business of the
people, then it'll have to be replaced by a dollar that is spent correctly.
Asking the taxpayer for more money to pay for pork projects would be like me
demanding an extra paycheck because I spent the first one on computer games.
If I got away with that, I might be helping the local Best Buy to stay in
business, but it'll be at the cost of the bookstore I work at. I can't even
blame this on just the Democrats, much as I'd love to, because the
Republicans held all three branches of government for six of the last eight
years. The Republicans lowered our taxes wonderfully, but didn't have the
guts or political will to enact the spending cuts necessary to balance the
books.
Traitors? Well.... let's see. If I stand by and watch my neighbor's house
burn down without calling for help, aren't I just as guilty as if I roasted
marshmallows over the burning embers, or even started the fire myself? I
think so.

How Stephen King supports the troops

"Reading -- I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV but the fact is that if you can read, you can walk into a job later on.  If you don't, then you got the army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that.  It's not as bright.  So that's my little commercial for that."

 

Stephen King on the intelligence of American Troops, and apparently how he "supports the troops".

 

Traitors

"...Unless America took action, and at once, they faced the prospect of
living like the Irish on potatoes and water..." from the memoirs of John
Adams.

I've been watching a documentary on the lead up to, execution of, and
moments following the attack on Pearl Harbor, and I am reminded of a time
not quite seven years ago when America was caught dozing on a sunny morning.
In the first few minutes of the attack on Pearl Harbor, our military men
thought that whatever was happening must be a drill. They stood and watched
open-mouthed because they couldn't believe that anyone would attack us. This
after more than a year of open agression by the Japanese military against
China, Manchuria, and the Soviet Union. Even after an attack on a US naval
vessell getting Americans out of China, as well as the rape of Nanking. Now
we're facing threats from enemies who have already targetted and killed
Americans, murdered 3,000 people in a single cowardly act, and we still
stick our heads in the sand and convince ourselves that it can't happen to
us. And worse yet, our so-called leaders, so-called representatives, the
people who think that everything we own comes through them first... these
people have stopped doing the work of serving the country and its citizens
and legal residents and now only do the work of their corporate and
political masters. Worse, they're cashing in on the war in Iraq, most
recently with the DNC using footage of American soldiers (who everyone says
they support) being blown up.

More next time

Do I Have To Say It?

Forget that Obama has been sitting in an "unashamedly black" church for twenty years while his inspirational 'uncle' spouts racist hate speech... never mind that an "unashamedly white" church would have been shut down.... never mind that the American (and I use the expression loosely) who's philosophy is most in line with that of Osama and (the racist hate-mongering) Louis Farrakhan really really REALLY wants Obama to get elected. Never mind that. Never mind the lack of any specific plans to address any problem facing the world. The man has already been caught lying about his position on international issues. (NAFTA/Canada). He is already demonstrating his lack of honesty and conviction... and the reluctance to accept responsibility for people who work for him (again, NAFTA/Canada, and the volunteer with the Cuban flag/Che Gueverra's face in the office). He has no respect for the National Anthem, and states that the flag lapel pin means nothing but the war and 9/11. We do have freedom to not demonstrate patriotism here... we even have freedom to not feel patriotism. But with the country in as much trouble as it is now, we need a president who at least pretends to be a patriot. I realize that his wife has never been proud of her country, but if he wants to be the commander in chief, I think he should also kind of be the cheerleader in chief. At least pretend that the flag means more to you than politics. And then maybe you can explain how you can be so influenced by a man and listen to him preach for twenty years the kind of racist spittle that Adolf Hitler (and Osama Bin Laden and Louis Farrakhan) would have loved.... and then not remember hearing any of it.

And if that weren't bad enough, the jack-booted fascist that looks preferable by comparison, Hillary Clinton, wants a do-over in Florida and Michigan. Not because she cares about every vote being counted (that's right... they did say that was important, didn't they?), but because she's losing. If you want to punish two states for breaking the rules, at least have the integrity to stick to that when it's inconvenient. That's what we can expect from another Clinton administration. Hillary has experience? Well, we have experienced Hillary, and she stinks.

Newt's Declaration of Independence

I was very happy to read Newt Gingrich's Declaration of Independence, and I was quite excited to read it. It makes common sense, and has me looking forward to, well, not this election (because Newt isn't running this time), but certainly the next one. It also harkened very well back to Ronald Reagan.... the following transcript of Gingrich's inspiring speech is provided with very kind permission by http://newt.org/


Thank you all for that remarkable welcome. I’m deeply, deeply grateful, and Callista and I are delighted to be back here once again at the most important single meeting of the conservative movement in a historic time.

Many of you know that my background includes being a teacher, and I am going to try in the next few minutes to offer a little bit of a lesson. My Dad was a career soldier, served 27 years in the infantry, and when I was very young, he convinced me that leadership and courage and a willingness to think deeply are vital to the survival of a free country.

Between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, when we were stationed first in Orleans, France, and then in Stuttgart, Germany, I concluded that what we are doing here today is really, really important. It’s part of the dialogue by which a free people govern themselves. My dad was reassigned to Fort Benning, Georgia, and in 1960, I was a volunteer as a high school student in the Nixon-Lodge campaign. So I want to talk to you this afternoon from having spent what will be this August, fifty years studying and thinking about what it takes for America to survive. In many ways, they’ve been remarkable years. The Georgia I arrived at in 1960, was legally segregated and a one-party Democratic state. Today it is legally integrated and a two-party state with a Republican governor, two Republican senators, and a Republican legislature.

When I decided at the beginning of my sophomore year in high school that I would study national security and I would try to understand how we acquire the power legitimately from the people in order to implement the policies we need, the Soviet Empire was a real and a direct threat to the survival of freedom on this planet. Because of the courage persistence, clarity, and vision of one person, the Soviet Union does not exist today, and that person was Ronald Wilson Reagan. Next month will be the 25th anniversary of two speeches: the speech in which he broke with the elite, morally neutral, real politik, accommodationist view, and described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”, the beginning of the end of that evil… and 13 days later, the speech in which he outlined a proposal for a science-and-technology-based, entrepreneurial approach to national security to develop a strategic defense initiative which would in effect bankrupt the Soviet Union and lead to its collapse.

Those two speeches could have been given by no other leader in the last fifty years. He had the courage, he had the conviction, and from 1947 on, he had been systematically thinking about and studying communism and trying to find out how to defeat it. Now, he made the first CPAC conference really important, because he came here at a time when we were in despair, when the Republican Party was crumbling under the weight of Watergate, when the Left was on offense, when the counterculture was in full steam, and he said in [March of 1975] that we must have a flag of bold colors, no pale pastels. [“Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?”—Ronald Reagan]

I tried in thinking through what I could say to you this afternoon to literally ask what would Ronald Reagan have said in this setting at this time, not to repeat what he said in other times, but to think about the clarity and the historic context. I went back and looked at what Barry Goldwater said in 1960 when there was a conservative eruption because Nixon was going too far to the left, and Goldwater’s name was put a nomination for vice-president, and he withdrew it and said he would support the ticket. Compared to the other party, there was no choice. I looked at what Ronald Reagan said in 1976, when having risen in rebellion against an incumbent Republican President and come within 70 votes of the nomination, he said that given a choice between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, there was no choice, because Jimmy Carter would be about as bad as he turned out to be.

So I want to say several things that are fairly complicated and I hope you will bare with me, because I think we are at a moment of historic choice for the conservative movement’s future. I want to give you four sets of numbers, those of you who are truly interested in this may want to write them down, we gave you a copy of the Platform of the American People which I’ll talk about in a minute, but feel free to write on the back of it. I think you’ll find this interesting as a lesson in history and as a thought process about where we are now. The first is the number 9 million. The second is two numbers: 1928 and 68. The third is 0 to 6, and the fourth is 14.6 to 8.3. I believe in these four sets of numbers, lies a diagnosis of where we are and where we must go.

The first number, 9 million, is the number of additional votes who came out to vote in 1994, the largest one-party increase in an off-year election in the history of the United States, brought out by a proud, positive, clear, and very, very bold Contract with America. I cite it to point out that when we stand clearly, simply, and directly for large-scale change, that year it was welfare reform, the first tax cut in 16 years, a balanced federal budget, accountability for the Congress, stronger national defense and intelligence. The American people responded.

The second set of numbers, 1928 and 68. In 1928 was the last time a Republican Congress was reelected. We had held the House from 1946 for two years, we held the House in 1952 for two years, and when I became Speaker I felt the greatest challenge I had was to ensure that we would in fact keep a majority in 1996 for the first time in 68 years. Now, it was a doubly difficult problem because I had every expectation that President Clinton, as one of the smartest, most agile, and least inhibited by principle politicians in America, would flow magically to whatever he had to in order to get reelected. So my assumption all along was that come the presidential campaign, we would have an uphill fight. No Republican House had been reelected with a Democratic President winning. And I want to share three keys with you that people don’t understand to this day in this city:

The first key is, we kept our word on the Contract, and we voted on every single item in the first 93 days, and people began to believe we were serious.

The second, is something that the news media and the elites and the Republican consultants got exactly backwards. We got into a struggle over balancing the budget with Bill Clinton and the federal government was closed. Everyone says, “What a huge mistake,” and I keep trying to say to them, “We were the first reelected majority in 68 years and you think it was a mistake?” If we had broken our word with fiscal conservatives, if we had rolled over and caved, if we had failed to fight, we would not have held the Congress in 1996. In fact, it was precisely because people suddenly looked up and said, “Wait a second. These guys actually believe it enough to lay their careers on the line and stand for something even when they’re being yelled at,” that led people to decide that we were real.

And third, we voluntarily committed that we would balance the federal budget. We weren’t required to by the Contract. The Contract said we’d vote on a balanced budget amendment. But we said when the amendment passed the House and failed by one vote in the Senate, we would go ahead and behave as though it had passed. And we said by definition if we were going to pass the amendment we thought we could balance the budget in seven years because that’s what to amendment said. And so we held a meeting and I’ll never forget it. Dick Armey, Bob Walker, Bob Livingston, Bill Archer, John Kasich, Tom Delay. We all sat down and we looked at each other. And I said, “We have a chance to decisively make history if we have the courage to make history.” Now in order to do that, we had to reform Medicare in the middle of an election year with a liberal Democrat in the White House. And we had to do so, so carefully, and with such training that all of our members could go home and explain what we were doing. And we had to do so with such care that AARP would not attack us, because we couldn’t have withstood it if they had decided to tell every senior citizen that we were against them. When we finished keeping our word on the Contract, standing firm even if it had involved a real fight, and moving towards a balanced budget with an effective reform of Medicare that people agreed was needed and correct, we kept the U.S. House for the first time in 68 years. And there’s a big lesson there.

Now the third number, which I think should have led to a vastly bigger discussion in the Republican Party, is 0 to 6. That’s the track record of incumbent U.S. Senators in a close election in 2006. Now if your party loses every single close incumbent election despite having raised an immense amount of money, maybe there’s something wrong. I don’t want to be too bold, but I want to suggest that if I were a stockholder and we were 0 for 6, I would like to talk about what’s going on. And yet we sleepwalk through 2007.

Now, because we were sleepwalking through 2007, we get to the last set of numbers which should sober every person in this country who does not want to have a left wing president. On Super Tuesday, there were 14.6 million Democratic votes, and 8.3 million Republican votes. Now, I want to repeat this because I want it to sink it in here. There were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday. That is a warning of a catastrophic election. I was in Idaho this last week, and Barack Obama on last Saturday had 16,000 people in Boise. The idea that the most liberal Democratic Senator getting 16,000 people in Boise was inconceivable. And every person who cares about the conservative movement and every person who cares about the Republican Party had better stop and say to themselves, “There is something big happening in this country. We don’t understand it. We’re not responding to it. And we’re currently not competitive. And if we want to get to be competitive, we had better change and we had better change now.”

Let me tell you flatly. I said the week before Super Tuesday, actually a week before the Super Bowl, reporters asked me, I think it was on Hannity and Colmes, and they said, “What are the Republican chances this fall?” And I said, “Well, I think they’re about as good as the New York Giants beating the Patriots.”

Now, and this next comment comes with a little pain because I’m a Green Bay fan, and I learned a lot about the Giants when they played in Green Bay recently, but here’s the point I was making. People thought I was saying we didn’t have a chance to win. I was saying, the game hasn’t started, and if we field the right team with the right issues in the right way, we have fully was much chance to win as the Giants did, but I’ll tell you, we are currently no where near being ready to do this. This is not a comment–I want to make this clear for the news media–this is not a comment about any of the current candidates for president.

This is a comment about the conservative movement, and it's a comment about the Republican Party, and all the candidates currently running fit within those two phrases. But it is about all of us. It is about our Congressman, our Senator, our governors, our county commissioners, our school board members.

And let me make this very clear, I believe we have to change or expect defeat.

And I believe that this is a time for the conservative movement, to issue a declaration of independence. And let me explain what I mean by issuing a declaration of independence.

First of all, I think we need to get independent from a Washington fixation. There are 513,000 elected officials in the United States and the conservative movement should believe in a decentralized United States, where every elected official has real responsibility, and we should be developing a conservative action plan, at every level of this country, and not simply focused over and over again on arguments about the White House.

Second, I think we need to get independent from this leader fascination with the presidency. Remember Ronald Reagan rose in rebellion because Gerald Ford was negotiating the Panama Canal Treaty. I voted against two Reagan tax increases. I voted against George H. W. Bush’s 1990 tax increase. It is a totally honorable and legitimate thing to say I am going to support the candidate and oppose the policy. This idea [is] that I think we [did] President George W. Bush a grave disservice by not being dramatically more aggressive in criticizing when they were wrong, and being more open when they were making mistakes.

And I don’t think it helped them or the country.

I also think that we need to declare our independence from trying to protect and defend failed bureaucracies that magically become our’s as soon as we are in charge of them. We appoint solid conservatives to a department and within three weeks they are defending and protecting the very department that they would have been attacking before they got appointed. And this is a fundamental problem and I think it comes from some very great challenges. And I want to suggest to you, and I spent a lot of time since 1999 thinking about this. That’s the part of why I wrote the book Real Change, and why I have tried to lay out at American Solutions a fundamentally different approach to how we think about solving our problems.

I think that there are two grave lessons for the conservative movement since 1980. The first, which we still haven’t come to grips with, is that governing is much harder than campaigning. Our consultants may be terrific at winning one election, they don’t know anything about governing. And unfortunately most of our candidates listen to our consultants. And so you end up with people who don’t understand briefing people who don’t know, and together they have no clue.

We win the election and then we lose the government. And this happens at every level. It happens in Sacramento, it happens in Tallahassee, it happens in Albany, it happens Trenton, and it happens in Washington D.C.

So the first lesson is that we are going to have to learn as a movement how to actually create conservative government, not just conservative politics. And that is a fundamentally harder thing.

The second thing that I think has been a very sobering surprise to me, and it really started when we won in 1994, and I thought that the Democrats would stop and say “Wow we just lost power that we had for forty years, I guess maybe we did something wrong.”

They didn’t say that at all. They said, “Gingrich must have cheated.” And their most partisan members just hated me. They filed 83 ethic charges and they did all sorts of things because they just couldn’t stand it. They knew they were supposed to be chairman. In fact, the first couple of weeks, people would come in and sit in the chairman’s seat and we would have to say to them, you know, you’re the ranking member now, and they were just beside themselves because they can’t have been wrong. And frankly this is why they hate George W. Bush so much. The notion that we might have actually been elected under the rules in 2000, the notion that we might actually be doing the right thing, just drives the Left crazy.

But it is a deeper problem. I had no real understanding of how decisively and deeply entrenched our opponents are from every level. From the Marxist tenure faculty member running for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota, achieving the impossible, the only man in America who could be to the left of Al Franken, and a vivid reminder of how much our University campuses are filled with people who hate the very country that provides them their salary, that provides them their tenure, and provides them their freedom.

To a Detroit school bureaucracy which is crippling the children of Detroit, which graduates only 25% of its entering freshman on time, which is one of the highest paid and most expensive programs in the country, and which, when a successful millionaire offered to give $200 million dollars, to help create charter schools to save the children of Detroit, promptly attacked him as a racist because no white man had the right to step in and save black children, and in fact drove him out of Detroit, because he was such a threat, by insisting that teachers actually be competent, and that the purpose of schools was actually to teach.

But we have seen the same thing right here. Any of youo who have listened to Ambassador John Bolton knows that we have a vast portion of the State Department deeply committed to defeating the policies of President Bush. We have a large proportion of the Intelligence community deeply committed to defeating the policies of President Bush. The fact that he is the elected Commander in Chief of the American people, the fact that the laws have been passed by the elected legislators of the American people, seems to be no matter to this bureaucratic elite, which arrogates to itself the right to do things that are stunningly destructive.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iran can only be understood as a bureaucratic coup d’état, deliberately designed to undermine the policies of the United States, on behalf of some weird goal.

There is one other declaration of independence we need and this will startle some of you. And remember I say this from a background of having been active in the Georgia Republican Party since 1960. In a fundamental way, the conservative movement has to declare itself independent from the Republican Party.

Let me make very clear what I'm saying here. I am not saying there should be a third party – I think a third party is a dumb idea, will not get anywhere, and in the end will achieve nothing.

I actually believe that any reasonable conservative will, in the end, find that they have an absolute requirement to support the Republican nominee for president this fall.

And let me remind you, I say that in the context of personally believing that the McCain-Feingold Act is unconstitutional and a threat to our civil liberties.

And I say that in the context of believing that the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill was a disaster and was correctly stopped by the American people.

But I would rather, as a citizen, and I say this with Callista and I have two wonderful grandchildren. Maggie who is 8 and Robert who is 6. We think about their future. As a citizen, I would rather have a President McCain that we fight with 20% of the time, than a President Clinton or a President Obama that we fight with 90% of the time.

Let me, if I might, carry this a step further so that you understand where I am coming from. I believe the conservative movement has to think about reaching out to every American of every background. I think we have to decide that in 2010, we are going to recruit and support conservative candidates in Democratic districts, because the right answer to gerrymandering is to beat them in the primary.

Now all of you have a copy, I hope you got a copy, but if you didn't, you can get it later on outside of the Platform of the American People from American Solutions. And it’s also at the back of my new book Real Change. And you can also get it at AmericanSolutions.com. And you can download it for free.

Let me tell you how we developed this. This is a work in progress and this is phase 1. We had a Solutions Day workshop last September with over 100,000 people participating across the country on the internet, in person, and on television. We had over 25,000 people in telephone and townhall meetings where we asked them to be involved and we listened to their questions and worked with them. We took six national surveys. And what we were looking for, and what’s in this Platform of the American People is issues which are tripartisan. They get a majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, and a majority of independents.

Now it turns out when you develop a tripartisan platform, it's a center-right platform because this is a center-right country. The fascinating thing will be watching Senator Obama who is for “Real Change” and has “change” on all his slogans, and I am for it. We wrote the book Real Change last summer and I want to thank the people at Regnery for going along with the title, it turns out this February that it was really a good title.

But it was also an obvious title. But here’s the question: Are you for the right change or the wrong change?

Let me give you a couple of examples from here. And this isn’t the Gingrich Platform, this is the Platform of the American People. And by the way, we’re going to want your help when you go back home reaching out to Democrats and Republicans, to get them at your county, at your district, at your state, in both parties to adopt this platform. Everything in here has a majority Democrat support. It doesn’t have a majority elite support, but I’m hoping you’ll go back home and I do want to introduce for one second Princella Smith who’s here somewhere. Princella is the chief advocate of the Platform of the American People and she’d love to talk to you later on and be available to explain it and work on it.

And here’s my point. Let’s talk about the right change versus the wrong change. 85% of the American people believe we have an absolute obligation to defend America and her allies.

So if we need to strengthen our intelligence capabilities, and strengthen our interdiction and surveillance capabilities, and strengthen our ability to win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere that would be the right change. But if we want to have weakness, under funding, and crippling of our departments of security that would be the wrong change.

Now let me give you a second example. 75% of the American people believe we have an obligation to defeat our enemies. Pretty strong language. Actually a higher number than I thought we’d get. 75% to 16%. So if we knew how to be clear and articulate and explain it, if we knew how to communicate to every American what the Director of National Intelligence said last week about the depth and intensity of al-Qaeda and this was on public record it just wasn’t, people didn’t pay attention to it, the news media didn’t want to cover it. The Director of National Intelligence said, let me tell you, al-Qaeda is working all day every day to find a way how to kill Americans. And they’re recruiting Westerners to have more sophisticated people to come and kill Americans. Now you would think if that was on then someone might say to Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, okay if al-Qaeda wants to come here, would you like to stop them over there? And if you want to stop them over there, how can you run back home to here if we’re trying to stop them over there?

Just three more examples to show you the difference between right change and wrong change. 92% of the American people believe that for us to compete with China and India in an age of science and technology we have to dramatically improve math and science education. Now, I am prepared to change every bureaucracy in America that is failing our children until we get them to actually succeed, and I think the change should start today, because we shouldn’t lose a single child to prison who ought to be in college if only they had a decent school to go to.

And the question for Senator Obama and Senator Clinton is simple. Are you prepared to put the children ahead of your union allies, and actually measure achievement rather than union dues as a primary success?

Two last examples. 87% of the American people believe English should be the official language of government.

Now, 87% means an absolute majority of Democrats favor English as the official language of government. An absolute majority of Republicans favor English as the official language of government. An absolute majority of independents favor English as the official language of government. An absolute majority of Hispanics favor English as the official language of government.

Both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton voted against 87% percent of the American people, but nobody knows it.

Well, it’s not their fault that nobody knows it, it’s our fault. So I would think if you want an example of real change, I think the Senate Republicans should say you know we like this idea of working together, we like this idea of getting real change, we’re prepared to work with Senator Obama next week, and Senator Clinton next week, and then once a week I would give them a chance to vote up or down on making English the official language of government. And let it just keep drawing it out.

Because there’s a profound principle here. If something is both historically right, and has 87% of the American people in favor of it, then leadership which is prepared to stand firm will in the end be successful in getting the right change, not the wrong change, for America’s future.

Lastly, 84% of the American people would like to have a one page tax form with an optional flat tax.

I know a number of you favor the Fair Tax, I’m just pointing out as an interim transition step, a one page flat tax wouldn’t be a bad interim step. And here’s my point about real change. If every Republican in the House and Senate were to send out a mailer to all of their constituents in March with literally the one page tax form, and an explanation on the back, and a little questionnaire that said, “Hi. Would you like to just change the whole tax code and have the option, now you can keep the current code if you want. If you like record keeping and you think you need your deductions, and you want to pay your CPA and your tax accountant or attorney, that’s fine. But if you’d like simplicity, clarity, and certainty, you could have this.” You would suddenly change the entire tax debate from finding a way to get more money for Washington, to finding a way to save an immense amount of time and clarity, and all of a sudden the Democrats would have to answer the question: Would they like to have real change now, and would they like to have the right change now?

Those of you who have cell phones with you I’m going to give you a chance to do a text message if you want to know more about what we’re doing. At American Solutions, we are dedicated to reaching out to everybody in the country. And so if you’d like to text Newt, see they made as easy for you as they could, we’d love to find out how to stay in touch with you.

I believe the following. And I say this having lived through the narrow defeat of 1960, the great convention victory of Goldwater followed by a disastrous defeat in ’64, the recovery in the ’66 off-year election, the very narrow election of Nixon in ’68, the stunning landslide over McGovern in ’72, the collapse of the Nixon administration, and the rise of Reagan, the loss to Jimmy Carter, the extraordinary victory of 1980.

I believe we have two futures this year.

I believe we can be for real change now. We can put the Democrats on record every day from here on out. We could use the House and Senate as opportunities to have the country focused on what’s the right change and what’s the wrong change. We can take on the bureaucracies and decide that we don’t care who the nominal head is. The permanent bureaucracy is permanently liberal, permanently obsolete, permanently incapable of doing its job, and we need fundamental deep change from school board to city council to county commission to the sheriff’s office to the state legislature to the governor to Washington, D.C., and we are the movement of real change by this summer I suspect we will win one of the most cataclysmic elections in American history. Because the sad reality is that our friends on the Left are trapped by their allies, they’re trapped by the trial lawyers, they’re trapped by the unions, they’re trapped by the big city bureaucracies, they are trapped by their allies in tenured faculty, they are trapped by the Hollywood Left.

And if there is a clear choice of which change, we will win. But if we run a traditional consultant-dominated tactical Republican campaign, like we’ve seen in the last eight years, we will be defeated this fall, and we will be having a CPAC meeting next year talking about how we rebuild for the future with either President Obama or President Clinton in charge.

I’m here as somebody who has spent his entire life practically, since I was fifteen years old, trying to find a way for us. And we’ve had great successes. We cut taxes dramatically, we re-launched the American economy in the 1980s, we eliminated the Soviet Union. The fact is we won the Cold War. People are freer.

So we have had great successes. But we can’t rest on them. And so we need to go out dedicated to insist on real change now, on the right change now, and about making sure that every American, of every background, in every neighborhood, understands that their future, their children’s future, and their country’s future, rest on creating the kind of opportunities that we are building, and that that requires real change in the obsolete, expensive, and destructive bureaucracies we’ve inherited in the past.

With your help, at every level, starting with adopting the Platform of the American People, and moving on to encouraging every elected official you know to be active in the reform movement, we have a chance I think to set the stage for a dramatically better American future. Thank you, good luck, and God bless you.

Just a quick note about slavery

When someone tells you that you can't do anything for yourself, and your only hope is to have your master give you everything you need, and that you can't be trusted to use what is yours.... that only your master can be trusted with your destiny, you are a slave. And that is what the liberals have been teaching you, and what you'll be getting with either candidate...


Kapact

Worst Case

By the time this is up, Stupid Tuesday, er, ahh, umm, Super Tuesday, that
is, will be history, and we'll probably know that John McCain has locked up
the Republican nomination, and Hillary will have taken most of the popular
vote, while Barack Hussein Obama (hey... that's the man's name, okay?) gets
most of the delegates. Well, it's a pretty damn stupid process, and really,
the only thing positive to be said about it all is that so far, nobody has
gotten killed. Yet. Part of what makes it stupid and futile and pretty
frustrating (to me anyway) is people with hom I tend to agree on most issues
shouting that we need to vote our principles instead of playing games, but
then allowing some admirable principles to risk losing the country. I'm not
a conservative talk show host, but I am a thinker. And I know that if I
support or berate someone based on race gender or religion, I am part of the
problem. I also know that if I am faced with the reality of either voting
for someone I don't like or someone for someone I don't like sharing the
planet with, I better rethink my principles. I'll be honest. I'm a
conservative. I'd be pretty happy if Mike Huckabee wins. But the fact is,
lots of people aren't. He did too good too early, scared the liberals, and
they put out a hit on him. The press took the job and assassinated him. I
thought the same about Romney, but apparently Republicans aren't allowed to
be religious. Especially Mormon. So really, the only Republican who'll be
allowed to even run is McCain. And he is a huge moderate. He works both
sides of the aisle. And really, someone so far to the right as to get
unqualified support from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck (both whom I respect
and agree with quite often) is not not not going to get elected. Not because
the people won't support him(given fair and full information), but because
the mainsteam drive by media will do anything to avoid giving that fair and
full information. The game is fixed, friends. They hated Bush going in the
first time. They went nuts when he went in again. If you think they are
going to sit still for a third absolute, uncompromising right wing
republican to go in, you are sadly mistaken. You really need to think beyond
the self-righteous chair and think about what is going to happen in
November. I really dislike each and every one of the clowns running for
president. If I had my choice, I'd be voting to dig Reagan out of the
ground, shoot some electricity into him, and put him back in office. But I'm
not going to get that. So I have to decide two things. Who, among the two
clowns I hate the least, has the best chance of beating the two clowns I
hate the most? Not my first choice, but I'd rather vote for someone who has
even one principle I believe in than someone who either shows no love or
respect for the flag, or someone who doesn't trust me write what I want on
the internet or to spend the money I earn. Principles are great and
important, but when your opponent is thinking two moves ahead, you'd better
be prepared to do the same. The other side is thinking not only about
winning the primary, but about winning the general election. And if you
don't start to think like that, you'll lose. Vote for who you like the most
in the primary, but take a shot of reality when it comes to the general
election. Because at that point its put up or shut up. That's when
compromise becomes something you need to think about.

Really, one of the things that has really poisoned politics in this country,
amongst republocrats, talk show hosts, and even thinkers, is a 'my party
right or wrong' way of thinking. Sort of like the "Are you still beating
your wife?" gag of old. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Logic or reason has no place because it might show another point of view.
Conservative talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are doing
things like that, refusing to consider working with the other side while
continually evoking the Reagan name. But Reagan didn't care about party. He
cared about his ideas. And he worked with whoever agreed, and sometimes even
compromised for the greater good.

To Quote a Great Democrat

Well, really, not. Kennedy spent most of his short presidency (which some
studies rather convincingly suggest was bought by Uncle Joe.... Kennedy. Not
Stalin) doped up on medication and propped up by gangster friends and a
friendly press. Not to liken the press to gangsters. Never. :) But Kennedy
did say something memorable. Something that pops up now and then when THEY
want to remind us of how great he was. Yeah, great. Vietnam. Bay of Pigs.
Marilyn Monroe 'suicide'. Great. But the man said "Ask NOT what your country
can do for you, but ask rather what you can do for your country." You'd
think that two people who owe their place in the spotlight to their last
name would have a bit more respect for one of the few noble concepts to come
out of one of most corrupt administrations ever inflicted on this country.
"Ask NOT what your country can do for you, but ask rather what you can do
for your country." Caroline Kennedy and Ted Kennedy have both endorsed
Barrack Hussein Obama, a man who bases his campaign on the color of his skin
(not the content of his character) and what your country can do for you. Not
that Billary is any better. Please, somebody, anybody, show me any evidence
that Oprah is backing Barrack Hussein Obama because of his (lack of)
experience and (lack of) fresh ideas and (lack of) independence from special
interests. Anybody? Anybody? Wow... so quiet. And there's usually so much
noise in here.

I work in a bookstore... liberals, sorry for the shock. Conservatives are
all supposed to be stupid, not people who read books. Heck, not even people,
really. But I do work in a bookstore, and I even read some of the books.
(Including Glenn Beck's "An Inconvenient Book"). And today I picked up
"Profiles in Courage", and I realized that neither Barrack Hussein Obama nor
Billary are showing any courage whatsoever. What the media... the
drive-by-media is showing for the first time that I can recall are two slave
classes of the liberal faith (women and blacks) fighting with each other.
Women are now racist, and blacks are now sexist. Just look into the National
Organization for Women's reaction to the Kennedy endorsement of Barrack
Hussein Obama.

And while Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight Republicans (The political
equivalent of "Andy Griffith's" Deputy Barney Fife) manages to continually
shoot itself in the foot, I say this. When you see your enemy making a
mistake, get out of his/her way.

Who am I talking about?

They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. They declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. They led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine.

 

 

You tell me....

Religious Intolerance

Hey... since conservatives are supposed to be the intolerant ones, can someone please explain to me why a candidate for president of one nation under god isn't supposed to mention that Christmas is actually about Christ? Or why we don't care if the current excuse for Senate Majority leader is a Mormon? See, I don't care. I actually prefer that someone who wants to lead the country holds himself to a code of morals and ethics, as well as an acknowledgement of a power greater than him. I guess you only have to be tolerant if you are a conservative. Although according to Hillary, you can't be a Republican and a Christian at the same time. Or maybe not. I mean, she said it, so it doesn't actually have to be true, does it?

If you really, really like it....

I know there are some people who regularly read this. If you really really like it, I can send things daily..... otherwise, continue to drop in. Comments are welcome always....

 

 

 

Kapact

From the Patriot Post Daily "Founder's Quote"

Founders Quote Daily

The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 84, 1788)

Reference: Hamilton, Federalist No. 84.

 

 

Just think about it....

return visitor

Lakeland Florida, I'm happy to see you returning..... I'd like to know what you think of the sites.....

The Declaration of Independence

(so you don't have to google it :)....)

 

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

 

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

 

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

 

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

 

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

 

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

 

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

 

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

 

— John Hancock

 

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

 

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

 

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

 

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

 

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

 

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

 

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

 

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

 

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

 

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

 

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

 

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

 

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

WE THE PEOPLE

I've been reading lots of Ronald Reagan lately. It's a nice alternative to
the ugliness of the current campaign. Really really ugly. And I'm reminded
of what it was like when we had two political parties in this country.
Republicans didn't care about the poor, they would get us into war, and
hated minorities. Democrats taxed and spent until we had stagflation, were
soft on crime, didn't care about family values, and embarrassed the country
all over the world. The press was always the press. Congress fought tooth
and nail with the White House unless something serious came up, and we all
stood together as Americans.

We don't have that anymore, and I'm trying to figure out where its gone. I
know that the people haven't changed. I mean, the people in this country are
here because they want to be here. They're here because despite it's image
problems around the world (that I'll touch on later), there is still no more
popular place to come to. In America we have immigration problems while
other places have emigration problems. Have you ever heard Mexico complain
about the flood of illegal immigrants into their country? No, because they
don't have that problem. So where is the problem? The problem lies in a
bloated broken government that even Tip O'neal would be hard pressed to
defend. For six years, we had a Republican White House and a Republican
Congress, but all they managed to do was spend like a pack of rabid liberals
with a budget surplus. They had a rare chance to rewrite the country in a
conservative mold, but they squandered that opportunity in order to buy
themselves more power. But of course, their efforts cost them power and
respectibility. They wasted what we had given them. So when they lost,
Democrats chose to posture and argue, and put their own personal agendas
over the good of the country. They ignored the wishes of the American
people.(not just registered Democrats) and threw away every conviction for
no other reason than a petty squabble with the White House. And surprise,
not only do they collectively have the lowest approval ratings in history,
but they haven't achieved anything.

Now we have many senior democrats (and one or two juniors) running for
president, but spouting more of the same tired rhetoric that has made it so
difficult for them to justify their salaries before. What is their solution?
More of the same. All I can say to them is this: "We've seen what your ideas
bring. We can't take it anymore." If you really want to read some
interesting words by a prominent (and pretty popular by the way) democrat,
google this quote: "No country has ever taxed itself into prosperity." So
what do the Republicans promise? Lots of things, but we've heard promises.
Show me how you'll change anything.

Even the president has things to answer for. I'm not talking about Iraq. I
think we should be there, and I know we're doing some good. Even if I
didn't, I believe that Bush believes it. And I support people I trust and
respect whether I agree with them completely or not. But I'm talking about
quiet sideline deals with Mexico that I simply do not understand. He is
selling out and locking up border guards who are just doing their duty.
Google Ramos and Campion to see what I mean. He supports the Law Of the Sea
Treaty, which in effect surrenders our sovereignty to the United Nations.
And what really worries me is why the Democrats aren't using that against
him. Could it be that they've all decided that the one thing they have in
common is a contempt for our sovereignty? Much as that frightens me, I think
it's possible. Why does that frighten me? Because it is a breach of trust.
It is conspiracy to undermine our culture. And it is taxation without
representation. Do yourself a favor. Find a copy of the Declaration of
Independence. While you're at it, read the tenth ammendment to the
Constitution.

I promised that I'd come back to the subject of America's image abroad. For
one thing, our swelling immigrant population tells me that it can't be as
bad as some would like you to think. It's easy and fashionable to talk about
how hated we are around the world, and sometimes I can understand where the
talk comes from. Life is not a popularity contest, and doing what you think
is right is sometimes going to make people hate you. I don't worry too much
about people like that, because they're going to hate you when they want to,
regardless of what you do. For a country that is supposed to be horrible,
millions are fighting to live here, and people from all over the world are
pushing each other aside in order to invest in America. We have our share of
problems, but most of them are elected officials. The country and the people
have a well-deserved reputation as the greatest hope for the free world.
America is still a shining city on the hill, but its up to WE THE PEOPLE to
hold our government accountable. There is an old saying. "Divide and
Conquer". If our government spends every waking moment (and every one of our
tax dollars) encouraging us to divide into opposing camps, you have to
wonder when 'Conquer' comes into it. I'm not being paranoid. I don't think
they'll do anything overt. But I do know that we're all being used for a
purpose that has nothing to do with "Protect and defend the constitution of
the United States of Amerca, agaunst all enemies, foreign and domestic." It
isn't we the democrats, or we the republicans. It's WE THE PEOPLE.

Live Free or Die

See the picture of Reagan at the top of this blog? See the Patriot Quote at
the top? Click on either link. You'll be taken to websites that really care
about what founded this country, and what makes it great. And that is,
simply put, the desire, indeed, the demand to live free or die. And you
know, the greatest, gravest threat to that simple, basic philosophy is not
what the mainstream liberal propoganda machine, what Rush Limbaugh properly
calls the drive-by media would have you believe. They'll say, and Big Sister
Hillary will agree, that it is the vast right-wing conspiracy. But the real
truth is just the opposite. The left in this country has admitted that they
want us to lose a war to an enemy that has vowed to destroy us. (Uh, yeah,
Al Qaeda promised to do that before we went to Iraq. And now we're fighting
them in Iraq, and the left openly admits that they think that'd be a great
idea.) And that's not all. They want to take away your money, and your power
to make decisions. They want to take your guns (and it was gun ownership
that freed the colonies from the British). They want to turn control of the
seas to the United Nations. No kidding. During wartime, the UN could tell
our subs when or where they had to surface. And the left thinks this is a
good idea. That is wrong and dangerous and stupid. But its not evil. What
I'm talking about here... what is truly evil and insidious and really truly
frightening is what they're not willing to say out loud. I'm talking about
Hitler stuff. I'm talking a fascist totalitarian thought police dictatorship
in a pantsuit and raising a fist in front of the star-spangled banner. I'm
talking about socialist, all-powerful federal government that takes
everything from you and then reluctantly gives out what they decide we need.
I'm talking about the fact that you can burn the flag, but not a cross. I'm
talking freedom of speech, but only if the state approves of that speech.
I'm talking about lying to an enormous voting block simply for the purpose
of enslaving them. I'm talking about tax dollars paying to pacify
islamofascists in this country but fighting tooth and nail to stop a
christian from proclaiming his or her faith. I'm talking about universities
bending over backwards to accomodate dictators vowing to destroy us and
spouting hate on a stage, but shouting down someone who's worst sin is
watching for illegal aliens crossing the border. The dictator is killing the
troops that these conspirators claim to support, and the "Minuteman" is
trying to help uphold the law. The dictator/murderer/fascist/holocaust
denier is cheered, but the American who just has a problem with people who
break the law is forced off the stage. Hate speech... what Mel Gibson is
chastised for spouting in a drunken tirade is allowed, where as the letter
of the law in this country is shouted down. There is no more perfect example
of just how polluted and diseased our colleges are.... except....

The University of Delaware has now defined a racist as any white person.
Furthermore, it states that a black person cannot, by definition, be
racist.... because, and listen carefully, they lack any power in society to
force their views or opinions on anyone else. So not only is the white race
evil by definition, but the black race is powerless by definition. And this
university accepts public funding.

This kind of thuggish, dictatorial, thought-police Nazi tactics are a real
threat. They present a clear and present danger to the principles that our
founding fathers fought to give us. From Hillary Clinton telling us what is
best for us, and no kidding holding a dictatorial iron fist poised over the
country, to Harry Reid demanding that a radio talk show host (who is doing
nothing but responsibly exercising his freedom of speech) be hushed up... no
kidding again.... demanding that Rush Limbaugh be shut up for speaking out
against a tool of the left who lied about military service to hurt those
very troops that everyone says they support.

When I talk about a vast left wing conspiracy, I'm talking about everyone
from Hillary to the mainstream propoganda machine to the universities that
are programming a generation of jack-booted brownshirts. And I say to them
what I say to you. Live free or die.

SEAL to Get Posthumous Medal of Honor

Associated Press October 12, 2007
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - A Navy SEAL who was killed while leading a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan will receive the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor.
Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Patchogue on Long Island, is the first Medal of Honor recipient for combat in Afghanistan, the Navy said in a statement Thursday.
In late June 2005, Murphy led a four-man reconnaissance mission east of Asadabad trying to find a key Taliban leader in advance of a mission to capture or destroy the local militia leadership. Taliban sympathizers alerted fighters to the SEALs' positions, and the four men were quickly outnumbered and came under fire, the Navy said.
Even after being wounded, Murphy crawled into the open to make a radio call for help and still continued to fight, the Navy said. The call ultimately allowed the rescue of one wounded SEAL and the recoveries of the bodies of Murphy and two others killed in the firefight.
President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Murphy's parents at the White House on Oct. 22.
"I think it is a public recognition of what we knew about Michael, of his intensity, his focus, his devout loyalty to home and family, his country and especially to his SEAL teammates and the SEAL community," Murphy's father, Daniel Murphy told Newsday for a story published on its Web site.
The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest military award for valor in action against an enemy force. Murphy is the fourth Navy SEAL to receive the medal and the first since Vietnam.
The other two SEALs killed in the Afghan firefight, Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz, 25, of Littleton, Colo., and Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew G. Axelson, 29, of Cupertino, Calif., previously received the Navy Cross, the second-highest honor.
A U.S. helicopter that went to rescue the SEALs was shot down by enemy fire; 16 SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed in the crash.
The entire battle resulted in the worst single-day loss of life for Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.
Two Medals of Honor have been awarded posthumously in the Iraq war.