Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

On 8/28/2010 I did something I had never before done. I awoke at 3AM to be on time to catch a chartered bus to Washington, D.C., along with about 50 people I had never met, to attend a rally on the Mall. If the date rings a bell it’s because it was Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally and, for the most part, all of the attendees were people you’d categorize as Tea Party members, 912 Project members, political Conservatives or Libertarians.  As a registered Democrat for the greater part of my life…“a fish out of water” would be an apt phrase to describe my presence among that crowd.

I went because my daughter was a senior in high school and, having listened to Beck on radio for quite some time, I decided his intention was a good one and it would make a great Mother/Daughter road trip memory in years to come.

I probably had reservations about what I might experience but went with an open mind none-the-less. Imagine my surprise when what I encountered was 500,000 civil, polite and patriotic individuals. The amount of respect shown person to person was unparalled in my life experience…and certainly an anomaly in a crowd that size. In fact, the Capitol Police and Sanitation Department said afterward, they had never before (and probably since) seen a crowd leave the Mall as spotless as when it arrived. No trash, no desecration, no graffiti, no disrespect. Just a gathering of like-minded, decent people come to share their love of God and country.

So, shame on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for using the word “anarchist” to describe those of us who today oppose the implementation of Obamacare and seek to defund it as a result. Not only must he not understand the definition of the word as it relates to a political group (Tea Party members seek less government, not no government) but he also sinks to a level that pits American against American in a most hateful way.

If Harry Reid can’t hold on to Obamacare through legitimate and Constitutional means he should give it up, not seek to demean citizens who disagree with his (a/k/a the Progressive) agenda.

If I had to get up again at 3AM to spend time with those same people, or others like them, I would not hesitate to do so.  Of course, that’s assuming Harry Reid wouldn’t be on board. I’m a Libertarian today and who knows what he’d call me.

History repeats itself. Unfortunately this axiom is true when humanity fails to learn the error of its ways.  A demoralized populace in the Weimar Republic was hungry for food, self-respect and leadership. Enter Adolph Hitler who had all the right buzz words and charisma to lead sheep to slaughter. By sheep, I refer not just to the Jews but also to “the good people of Germany” who followed their Pied Piper all the way to devastation by the Allied forces.

The repeat?

We, here in the United States, have been on a slippery slope for decades. Never mind the sociological and economic reasons why. Suffice it to say it is truth. Now, having experienced staggering unemployment, an over-extended and weakened military, a dollar of diminishing value, and dangerously incompetent leadership, Vladimir Putin enters stage left via a New York Times op-ed piece.

Putin has the hubris to lecture Americans on just behavior as he arrives cloaked in language that belies his own history of repression and thuggery not to mention religious and human rights oppression. Yet, in the absence of real leadership, the forcefulness of his conviction as devious as it may be makes this one-eyed monster appear as a King in the Land of the Blind.

We, here in the United States, have become the Land of the Blind. We turned not only a blind eye but also a deaf ear to the lies and manipulations of those to whom we entrusted power even as we knew in our hearts they were abusing it and us.

We have arrived at the door to our own demise.

Do not touch the handle. Do not think there is any way back from what is on the other side. Turn now. Run as far and as fast as you can in the other direction. Leave Putin and Obama behind. Become your own leader until such time as you come upon one who is genuine and does not seek the position. There you will have found meritorious leadership.

In the meantime, act swiftly and keep an eye out for John Galt. Let’s also pray that neither he nor Galt’s Gulch are fiction.

In Rose, Michigan, a 6th grade student is groomed for two years then raped by a 40-year-old pedofile teacher at the public school. The teacher is then tried and convicted by a court of law and sentenced to 15-30 years. The School Board, the local Lutheran Church and the faculty stand in support of the pedofile.

In Ontario, Canada, a mother with an autistic son moves into a new neighborhood and receives an anonymous letter in her mailbox suggesting she euthanize her son and donate “whatever non-retarded body parts he has” to science because the sounds the child makes when playing outside are “not normal” and disturbing. The letter further states that no one is ever going to employ or love him. The surrounding community is silent.

Al Jazeera, a purported “news” channel owned and operated by the nation of Qatar, began cable broadcast today into 49 million homes in the United States. Not only is this the network that promoted and broadcast tapes by Osama bin Laden, but Qatar is currently the outcast Arab nation that is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda and atrocities in Egypt, much to the public dismay of its Arab neighbors who deem the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. What the Arab world deems terrorist, the United States welcome into its homes and families.

If Adolf Hitler knew one thing it was how reluctant people are to take a stand against what they know in their hearts to be wrong. Behavior can defy reason and decency and yet we humans, all too readily and in the end tragically, remain mute for fear of reprisal.

There is historical instruction on this issue. And its not WWII but rather the biblical Book of Esther. Esther, a Jew, is married to the King of Persia who is unaware of her heritage. When the King’s Ambassador and confidant Haman attempts to eliminate all the Jews, Esther’s uncle Mordechai tells her to go to the King and plead for intervention to reverse the decree. Esther, fearing for her own life should she reveal her Judaism to the King, at first declines Mordechai’s request. In reply, Mordechai tells her that if she seeks her own personal safety at the expense of her People, the Jews will die but inevitably so shall Esther. His admonition: Your silence will cost you the very thing you seek it to protect.

Whether the issue is a pedofile teacher, a cruel and cowardly neighbor lacking all compassion, or the media outlet of our sworn enemy being invited into our children’s minds, silence in opposition will cost you the protections and peace you hope it will bring.

What has happened to us? When did we lose not only our sense of humor but also our freedom of speech? A rodeo clown in Missouri dons a mask of the President and seeks to “get chased down” by a bull and its cause for a  federal investigation not to mention a lifetime ban on the clown?

In my lifetime, I cannot recall a President who was not spoofed, mocked, made fun of or characterized in a mask by some person or another. Yet I cannot recall it becoming an event of such monumental proportions nor resulting in the firing of an individual from his professional line of work.

Yet, here we are having reached either the absurd but inevitable end result of political correctness or, worse, the “fundamental transformation” of the role of President into the role of a “god” who cannot be “blasphemed.”

I am fairly certain that just as with Oprah’s recent mis-characterization of what she experienced in Switzerland, calling a communications malfunction  a personal and racial affront, so too has the P.C. mentality turned political satire (however base) into a personal attack on the first black President simply because he is black.

I think not.

The spoof was much more likely a political statement by someone who disagrees with the President’s policies and found a way to express that in the humorous context of what is his life’s work.

As Thomas Jefferson said, we are duty bound as citizens of the United States to “question with boldness even the existence of God.” Surely, given that directive, it should come as no surprise, nor insult, for someone to question or even mock with boldness, the President of the United States.

Think this one over carefully. What’s happening here isn’t about P.C., race, or politics. It’s about the silencing of free speech. The rodeo clown’s. Then, soon to follow, yours and mine.

It’s been done before and eloquently memorialized before.

“First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”

History repeats itself.  Speak up before there is no one to speak for you.

 

 

It didn’t work in Detroit when the progressive “Model City” plan was implemented. It didn’t work when U.S. banks stopped requiring credit thresholds before issuing new mortgages. It didn’t work when Congress rammed through the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obamacare) and it will not work as The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) now tries to cure diversity “shortfalls” in our neighborhoods by imposing mandatory diversity regulations.

Social engineering and redistribution simply do not work.

The “Model City” plan in Detroit bankrupted the city and brought the 4^th largest city in the United States in 1970 to its knees by 2013. By turning on the spigots of home loans absent verified credit, banks brought the housing market to its knees and precipitated the stock market crash of 2008. Obamacare, promised not to be a tax then upheld by the Supreme Court as a tax now seems to be underfunded, impossible to implement and creating more problems across the economy that it could ever have solved. It may bring the economy of the nation to its knees. HUD will, if it has its way, be a significant nail in the coffin of Liberty by regulating who gets to live where based upon subjective and arbitrary rules and regulations rather than effort and achievement.

Social engineering and redistribution of wealth and services are the cornerstones of this Administration. They are the tools of transformation by which Progressives in both political parties seek to ever-enlarge a centralized government while simultaneously diminishing the individual.

If you think you can do nothing you are wrong. Find like-minded people and join together to voice, in whatever ways are peaceful and law abiding, your refusal to go quietly into the night.

Robert F. Kennedy said: “Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Whether I have an aversion to herd mentality or simply have a thought process that weighs facts differently than most I cannot say. What I can say is that just as I recently wrote how I never saw the wisdom in the adulation of Oprah, so too have I never understood it in relation to Hillary Clinton. Now, as she ratchets up the Hilary for 2016 onslaught, I can hear the hoofs of the herd begin their run toward the White House. Should it turn out to be a stampede, I’d caution those participants to realize that as with all excesses there will be unintended collateral damage.

In this case, however, should she actually become President I fear the damage will be the demise of our already mutilated Republic.

Can we be so hungry, or blind, in our rush to elect the first woman President that we will ignore a lifetime and very public display of deception, immorality, and sheer lust for power? Do we think that any woman of the desired gender will fill the bill simply because of that gender? Did any black, regardless of experience, fill the bill and meet our expectations of the first black President?  Did he cure the racial divide or stoke its fires? As I look around at the current state of things the answers to these questions are obvious and disturbing.

How can we actually be contemplating, no make that eager, to return to the White House a couple known and shown to have an insatiable appetite for power and a total disregard for both ethics and morality? If nothing else, Bill’s obfuscation while President and under oath (“It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is”) and Hillary’s Benghazi cover-up and inhumanity while Secretary of State and under oath (“What difference at this point does it make?”) should be all the red flags any thinking person needs to run not with the herd towards the White House but as far away from it in the opposite direction as possible.

But I said “thinking” person…didn’t I?

No one enjoys feeling like a broken record. It’s especially frustrating when the urge to inform is overwhelming and the reception is, at best, lukewarm. I am certain Paul Revere felt like a broken record as he blazed through New England announcing “The British are coming!” However, what differs from Colonial times is that those of us who are currently awake and concerned enough to perceive imminent danger are ringing a bell whose sound is falling upon deaf ears.

I have been writing you for over two years about the inevitable harm to our way of life, particularly our personal freedoms and free enterprise system, that will result from our government’s deceitfulness, corruption, negligence and sheer incompetence. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about the lust for power regardless of party affiliation. We are way beyond politics now. We are into survival.

What humankind in general, and Americans in particular, shrinks from accepting is personal responsibility for creating the brink at which we now teeter. We have arrived at a government out of control, forcing upon us rules and regulations that defy our founding documents as well as our present will, because we have been too self-indulgent and momentarily satisfied to stand for what is right rather than acquiesce to what is expedient.

I have written about history’s pattern of enslavement and how we choose to remain blind to its teachings. I have written about power versus force and where true power is found. I have written about personal responsibility and the hell that follows its willful abdication. I am not alone. There are other voices, other “riders ringing the bell,” who also grow weary and disillusioned by your silence and inaction.

You and I are each but one voice. But one voice has changed history time and time again for better and for worse. One voice has joined with many voices time and time again to change history for better or for worse. So whether it is your lone voice speaking loud and clear with a firm determination to be heard, or your voice joined with other like-minded individuals to unite in a chorus of humanity’s best, it matters not.

What matters is that those of us who grow weary of ringing the bell, but who will not cease to do so, hear and are refreshed by the sound of an approaching army of voices who say, yet again, to the corrupt and oppressive powers that be, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

In the run-up to the New York City Mayoral Democrat primary, former disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner is now leading his opponent, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The implications of Mr. Weiner’s success at resurrecting himself from sex-addict to Mayoral candidate lead me to a disturbing conclusion regarding New York Democrats…and I fear the majority of Americans as well.

We have given up caring about ethics, morality and the truth.

Anthony Weiner is symptomatic of the diseases of apathy and abdication of personal responsibility that we, as a culture, suffer from. Some might even say diseases from which we are close to death.

I am a cynical optimist. I question everything, have a tendency to see the flaw in most situations, yet retain an underlying and unwavering faith in the power of the individual to overcome or transform the darkest moments of existence. I have always been this way and yet, recently, I am having difficulty holding on to faith in my countrymen as a whole.

We’ve allowed ourselves to be lied to about Obamacare, the Arab Spring, Benghazi, the NSA, drone strikes, immigration reform, and a seemingly endless list of other issues and we DO NOT CARE. We certainly do not care enough to demand a change in the policies and politicians who continue to perpetuate these falsehoods and encroachments upon our individual liberties and rights. Hilary Clinton for President in 2016? Really? Can you say “Banghazi, Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner and Hilary Clinton” with a straight face?

Which is why I say Anthony Weiner is a symptom. He lied to the American people when he led a witch hunt and boycott against Goldline and talk-radio personality Glenn Beck; he lied when he denied sexting; he knowingly manufactured a false story about his Twitter account having been hacked, and he mocked his marriage vows and disgraced himself and his wife when he sexted and lied to cover it up. Yet, in no time, New Yorkers are seriously, even eagerly, willing to consider him as a viable Mayoral candidate despite all his deceit and apparent lack of conscience.

We are at the edge of a cultural abyss. It will not take much to push us over. It will, however, take much to pull us back. The question remains whether or not there are enough of us who care enough to risk what must be risked, say what must be said, and do what must be done.

If the answer is not “Yes” then I fear for our continued existence as a free people as well as the fate of all humanity.

The most important aspect of the Benghazi terror attacks has yet to surface. It’s not about why there was insufficient security given advance knowledge of the dangers, or who gave the order to stand down, or even why President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton contrived to lie about both the cause and the decisions that followed in response.

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

Just how much deception, manipulation and disrespect will we allow ourselves to be subjected to before we become indignant, demand accountability, pursue prosecution and replace those individuals with public servants who honor integrity and truth above expediency and power?

How many brave individuals, such as those who died in Benghazi and those who now testify to the truth of what occurred there have to risk their careers, or forfeit their lives, to do what is right in the face of evil?

How many of us will continue to choose self-imposed blindness and ignorance of leaders with an endgame that culminates in our enslavement and whose means of getting there knows no ethical, moral or legal bounds?

Benghazi isn’t about them.  It’s about us.

While our minds play intellectually disingenuous games based upon particular agendas and political predispositions, our hearts know with certainty that President Obama, Hilary Clinton, Jay Carney, Susan Rice, and a supporting cast of literally thousands are liars.

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

So long as we acquiesce to allowing ourselves to be distracted from the truth and herded like sheep into a state of manageable containment, we have far more pressing concerns than Al Qaeda. We are on the brink of voluntarily relinquishing our birthright. Like Biblical Esau, who traded his birthright for a bowl of hot soup because he was more concerned with instant gratification than the long-range consequence of his choice, we are condemning ourselves and our children to a world where deception and slavery are the norm.

This isn’t a hypothetical. Nor is it hyperbole. This is the real danger, and now is the defining moment, each of us is facing. What will you accept?  What will you do?

Benghazi isn’t about them. It’s about us.

 

Few words in the English language make me as uncomfortable as the word “appeasement.” That’s because it conjures images of Neville Chamberlain, train tracks and ovens. So, when tonight I heard talk radio host Glenn Beck use the word appeasement in the context of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, I sat up and took notice. I reacted as I did because that one word instantly brought into focus all that is occurring around us.

Energy, finances and Wahhabism are the 21st century trinity. You probably know about the U.S.- Saudi oil dependent relationship. You may even know that Saudi investment and ownership in U.S. companies and enterprises includes such holdings as 60% of Citibank and $20 million gifts each to Georgetown and Harvard Universities to buy Departmental Chairs and influence curriculum. The list is endless and the sums of money (read “influence”) are staggering.

But did you know that Saudi Arabia is the largest source of funding for terrorism in the world? Or that Wahhabism is the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia? Or that it’s “a religious movement among fundamentalist Islamic believers that seeks to return to the earliest fundamental sources of the Quran”? It teaches the worst kind of hatred and spawns terror against all non-Muslim people and beliefs. It has schools in the United States teaching, for example, that Muslims should not only “always oppose” infidels “in every way”, but “hate them for their religion … for Allah’s sake”, that “democracy” is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century”, and that Shia and certain Sunni Muslims were infidels.”

We have turned a blind eye towards the destructive relationship that has evolved with Saudi Arabia. While this Administration is not the first to be complicit in this, it is the one history will charge with being most like the despised Neville Chamberlain who appeased the enemy.

Today we are not witness to the final destination of train tracks but rather to beheading and suicide bombers. And as with the most recent attack in Boston, we again hear voices from those in power who deny the truth (“there’s no such thing as Islamic terrorism”) and conspire with the enemy to conceal it (Janet Napolitano lying to Congress about the immanent “voluntary” deportation of Boston terror attack likely co-conspirator Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi).

Appeasement.

Whether the Nazis or the Saudis, selling your soul to Evil in exchange for anything is but an illusion. Evil make no deals from which it does not emerge the victor having consumed the vanquished.

Our only hope is to courageously stand for what is right and true albeit it difficult.  My prayer is that there are enough of us willing to do just that before we find ourselves out of options.