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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

1/31/2007

Johnny Can't Add or Subtract ...
But He Sure Does Love Polar Bears


As some of you know, my posting here will be less frequent, and probably more superficial, over the next couple of months, but I’m hoping you all will continue to visit now and then and add your comments to anything here, as well as respond to each others’ thoughts.

As an example of the ‘more superficial stuff’ that I’ll be offering here for a little while, for lack of time to spend on anything more serious, I submit the following four observations that I mentally catalogued within just the past few weeks – without comment – as microcosmic evidence of what I believe is representative of what is happening in America 2007, in education in particular, although its tentacles reach into all segments of our society. This is why I created this weblog: to discuss America’s decline, and perhaps come up with a strategy to awaken those who are unaware of what we have lost, and the price we will pay if we continue to travel this dismal path, with our every move choreographed by those who despise liberty and justice, and who believe themselves to be members of a ruling elite, to whom power over others is a privilege not to be denied.

They are attempting to demean, degrade, and dumb us down as a people, through our education system, our entertainment choices and our channels of information, and by restricting our liberties through oppressive taxation, laws and judicial fiat.

I do not believe that the following four occurrences are aberrations. I believe they are typical of what is happening in education today. Yes, there are young people who strive to excel, and who thirst to learn, in spite of the counterfeit ‘education’ that is offered to them. But too many young people, and their families behind the scenes, are too otherwise occupied to realize, let alone do anything about, the fact that education in America is not what it used to be, nor what it should be.

Much of what is ‘taught’ these days in the public school classroom, and in so-called higher education, is leftist propaganda, and the basics … necessary for the survival of a free, civilized society … be damned.

Likewise, the teaching methods used today rely more on providing a pre-ordained, robotic road map, rather than inspiring original thought or critical thinking. Most young products of the modern American public education system, if not provided a familiar, by-rote ‘go from A to B to C’ outline as to how to solve a problem, do not possess the tools to discover, or invent, the answer to anything.

- I -

I am tutoring (in statistics) a former piano student who is now a sophomore at a local campus of Penn State. Dustin is perhaps the most diligent, hard-working, ambitious young man I have ever known. From the time he was twelve years old, he has purchased, or salvaged, broken down farm tractors and brought them back into working order. The profits he has made in doing that for the past eight years, as well as performing countless odd jobs with his Dad (moving entire households, interior/exterior house painting, small construction work, etc.), have paid for the first two years of his college education.

During this week’s lesson, Dustin told me that a good portion of the students in his statistics class are minorities, some of whom are attending school on minority government grants/loans. There are twenty-six students in his class, and the large majority of them bring no book, no paper, and no pencil to class. They slouch down in their chairs, and simply stare at the instructor, or out the window, the entire class.

The fellow who sits next to him does not turn his cell phone off during class, and it generally rings two or three times during each class period – the ring tone being a vulgar rap ‘song’, words and all. The instructor (a capable young woman with a thick Indian accent, who, Dustin says, appears to be very intelligent and dedicated to teaching well, but her accent makes it difficult to understand her) has never mustered the courage to tell him to turn it off.

Last week the students were given one week’s time to take a half-hour on-line quiz. The day after the quiz deadline, the instructor came into the class and said that she would be extending the deadline for taking the quiz two more days, because only fourteen of the twenty-six people in the class had bothered to go on-line and take it.

Question:

Why is a hard-working, ambitious student finding himself stifled and distracted by other students who apparently have no desire to learn or succeed? And why are some of the latter attending (and apparently doing no more than attending) college on your and my tax dollars?

- II -

A few nights ago, Rick and I were watching the quiz show ‘The Weakest Link’ for the first (and last) time. The contestants were eight college juniors and seniors, each one from a ‘respected’ college/university. Toward the middle of the program, one of the girls was asked, ‘In what century did World War II occur?’

She responded, ‘The 70s.’

Question:

In my college generation (the late 60s/early 70s) it would have been virtually impossible to find a college junior who did not know what a century is, or when World War II occurred. What are college students studying these days that leaves them little time to learn the history of their republic?

- III -

Our son, Dan, teaches physics at a vo-tech high school, and has been teaching a unit on nuclear energy in his physics classes for the past two years. The large majority of Dan’s classes are original and involve significant hands-on study, and the requiring of creative thought and in-depth analysis.

As one of many examples of his assignments in this class, he would split the class up into groups, assign each group a fictitious power plant in a specific part of the country, and a specific amount and type of nuclear waste that required disposal from that plant. He would then also assign them a waste disposal site in another part of the country. Their assignment was then to determine how best to dispose of the waste (taking into account the health and environmental risks posed by the particular waste, transport safety considerations, traffic and population considerations, local and state restrictions, etc.).

Before Dan began teaching at this school, there were only two physics classes offered. Now there are four, and there are waiting lists for all of them. His students are inspired by his teaching methods, his subject matter, and the relevance of what they learn.

He was told this year that, due to state mandates regarding subject matter to be taught in physics classes, he can no longer teach anything on nuclear energy, but must substitute, instead, other areas of physics pre-ordained by the state department of education.

Also, as a result of the state’s implementation of No Child Left Behind standards, the administration at the school is considering abolishing physics courses altogether in order to devote that portion of their science curriculum to meeting the NCLB general science requirements (which include increased emphasis on environmental studies).

Question:

In this particularly perilous time in American history, would young people most benefit from comprehending the basics behind nuclear energy and its uses and consequences, or the bogus theory behind most ‘environmental issues’? If the answer is the former, why are good physics teachers being forced to ignore timely and relevant subjects in deference to teaching a bogus theory based on fraudulent ‘science’?

- IV -

A third grade piano student of mine who enjoys telling me about her day before we begin each lesson came to her lesson a few weeks ago and told me that she has decided what she wants to do when she grows up. She wants to ‘save the polar bears’. When I asked her what made her so passionate about polar bears, she replied, ‘We are learning all about the bad things that we are doing to the polar bears and all other animals and plants because we are making the earth too hot for them. We have to stop putting things into the air that make the earth too hot, and I want to do that for the animals and plants.’

Question:

What is the difference between education and indoctrination? And beginning at what grade level is indoctrination acceptable? Should an eight-year old be concerning herself with the potential (manufactured) sad fate of the polar bear before she has learned to work with fractions, or the tragic story of the Civil War? Should a young citizen of a free country graduate from college expertly versed in the former and totally ignorant of the latter?

~ joanie

1/22/2007

The Extermination of Evil Requires
Confronting its Source


A few weeks ago, I wrote in an essay:

… if we make the commitment to do so [confront Islamic fascism], it should be a full-fledged commitment. We should re-deploy troops that are performing non-military duty around the world, or who are assigned in non-essential areas, and place those troops in strategic areas along the Iraq border so as to stop the constant infiltration of insurgents and agitators from Iran and Syria.

As we did in Vietnam, we are fighting this war with one hand tied behind our backs. In this case we are feverishly bailing the boat while stubbornly refusing to seal the leak. A large number of American troop and Iraqi citizen fatalities are the simple result of the fact that we continue to allow Iranian and Syrian instigators, and equipment, to flow, virtually unfettered, into the war zone.


I also included those paragraphs in a few e-mails written to conservative friends who share my concern about the fact that we are losing troops in Iraq, in part because we are not allowing them to do what needs to be done to defeat the insurgency.

Following the president’s recent speech on his ‘new Iraq policy’, I received letters from these conservative friends, a few of which indicated a renewed optimism as a result of the president’s plans to ‘confront’ Iran.

I don’t share their optimism. On the contrary, I am disgusted with the president’s symbolic new ‘toughness’.

Over the past few years, in his several addresses to the nation on the administration’s various ‘new’ efforts to solve America's other major crisis -- the virtually uninterrupted flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border -- this president has consistently promised tough new initiatives, none of which have ever proved to be more than lip service, designed to quiet that part of the citizenry that neglects to keep its eyes open in order to determine whether actions follow words.

They (actions) rarely do (follow words) with this president. At least not on issues of national urgency -- not unless one considers state-provided prescription drugs, or federally-dictated mediocre educational standards, solutions to matters of national urgency.

And now he is making the same kinds of hollow promises in regard to the toxic Iranian influence in Iraq: seemingly tough, but carefully crafted, words that insure that this war on Islamic fascism will continue to be fought half-heartedly until he leaves the White House. And God only knows what new human-on-human atrocities the far-from-half-hearted enemy will accomplish in the interim.

The president’s ‘new’ plan seems to be to instruct our troops to attack the Iranian-inspired and Iranian-supplied insurgents only inside the borders of Iraq -- but to do so in larger numbers. Our troops still will be forbidden from attacking the source of the bloodthirst.

The president is still insisting on bailing the boat while ignoring the leak. How can we order our troops to win a war when we steadfastly refuse to allow them to confront the enemy?

In World War II, we did not define as victory engaging the enemy on the front lines. Even cutting off the enemy's supply lines was not sufficient for the Allied war planners of the forties. They were courageous and visionary enough to define their visual field so as to include the enemy’s munitions factories and command centers. They knew that, without doing so, the war either (1) would eventually be lost, or (2) would last significantly longer than warranted.

Now, sixty years later, when the American public’s patience and attention span are but a fraction of what they were then, and when a significant portion of their ‘leadership’ is nearly as determined to insure American defeat as is the enemy, #2 above is not an option. So #1 becomes significantly more likely.

As further evidence that the president plans to continue to wage a ‘semi-war’ … following his recent speech, when his National Security Advisor was asked whether the president is considering a military confrontation with Iran, he responded that the ‘issues’ with Iran must be solved ‘diplomatically.’

Issues?

Were the killing fields of Cambodia an issue? How about the purposeful 'famine' in the Ukraine in the early thirties? Would Mr. Hadley consider those events 'issues' as well? Words that downplay human abominations and barbaric atrocities are indications of the intent of the speaker, and his handlers.

Those ‘issues’ to which this administration spokesman refers include Iran’s bloodthirsty determination to continue to kill American troops, to regularly blow up Iraqi civilians and infrastructure, and to insure that this war continues until the American government, and the American people, demand a complete withdrawal of American presence from the Middle East, the ultimate victory of brute barbaric force in Iraq, and the emboldening of jihadists the world over.

As if reiterating the administration’s dedication to handcuffing our troops, when being questioned by the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Gates stated that our troops are being ordered to focus on the pipeline that is supplying the insurgents in Iraq with Iranian explosives, and that new orders are ‘making it clear that those who are involved in activities that cost the lives of American soldiers are going to be subject to actions on the part of the United States inside Iraq.

In other (less duplicitous) words, more of our troops are being ordered to bail the boat more feverishly. But they still will be forbidden to seal the leak. The counterinsurgency strategy continues to be written with blinders on -- blinders that inspire increased cause for celebration in Tehran, where the defeatist psychology of the American congressional 'leadership', and the malleable mindset of the American public, are studied and manipulated far more artfully than they are by anyone within the walls of the White House.

A president of courage, foresight, and backbone, unwilling to allow a leftist-controlled congress and/or media to play a role in his decisions as Commander-in-Chief, would be preparing to instruct American troops to fortify every inch of the Iran/Iraq border, or to cross the border into Iran, with orders to destroy all IEDs, and the Iranian jihadists who are intent on using them. But this president is planning to send twenty thousand additional troops into Iraq, to be stationed primarily in and around Baghdad, and condemned to wear the same handcuffs as the troops who are there now.

It’s about time the president adopted the same degree of courage and resolve as is possessed by those he is sending into harm’s way. If he does not soon do so, not only will a portion of the newly-shed blood of courageous, duty-bound Americans cover his hands, but the incremental destruction of the Western world will be the result of his continued unwillingness to confront evil at its source.

~ joanie

1/16/2007

The Truth is Now a
Revolutionary Act


War is won by breaking the will of the opponent.

The enemy wants to kill you.

The terrorists’ strategy is designed to break our will – the will of the American people. Their strategy is to slowly degrade America’s four instruments of national power: political, economic, social, and military.

Their goal is to create havoc in our vulnerable democratic system until it collapses.


November 4, 1979: Iranian hostage crisis, Tehran
October 23, 1983: U.S. Marine barracks, Beirut
October 7, 1985: Achille Lauro Hijacking, Egypt
December 21, 1988: Pan Am 103 bombing, Lockerbie, Scotland
February 26, 1993: World Trade Center Bombing
June 25, 1996: Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia
August 7, 1998: U.S. Embassy bombings, Tanzania and Kenya
October 12, 2000: U.S. Cole bombing, Yemen
September 11, 2001: World Trade Center, Pentagon


Coming to a neighborhood near you?

Wake up America! This war started twenty-eight years ago!

The struggle against Islamo-fascism is clearly being lost on the home front.

Consider the following:

With over 1.1 billion Muslims worldwide, it’s estimated 10% (110 million) are radicalized and sworn to our death and destruction.

Islamic religious leader granted Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda the right to kill up to 10 million Americans. Plans are in the works for catastrophic attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.

Over 90% of American mosques are Saudi funded and tainted by Wahabbi doctrine.

Colleges like Harvard, Georgetown, etc. have received multi-million dollar gifts from Saudi Arabians – funds being used to purchase influence and capture the minds of our youth.

Thousands of prisoners are being converted to Islam in our prisons. Upon release, many of these same felons are recruited into a standing army awaiting marching orders.

Terrorist training facilities continue to operate freely within our borders.

Muslim students Associations (MSAs), Islamic centers and mosques across America and Canada sponsor paintball outings and promote survival skills.

They recommend to Muslim students that paintball is an excellent way to learn about combat.

CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) continues to exert tremendous influence in Washington. Their propaganda machine is supported by huge donations from Saudi Arabia.

Our enemies are forthright when voicing their intentions to establish a caliphate and deliver the entire world to Allah. We are the ones who refuse to accept the fact that they mean business, so we continue to live in a state of lethal denial.

In the words of CAIR’s chairman, Omar Ahmad, ‘Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to be dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.

CAIR continues to host regional conferences for thousand of Muslims nationwide. Keynote speakers include the likes of Siraj Wahhaj, the un-indicted co-conspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

With the 2006 election results in, one big winner may be CAIR.

Resurrecting tabled bills, like House resolution 288, CAIR will now be able to use the new congress to expand its reach and influence even further than it has up to now.

On the horizon? Amnesty for illegal aliens, open borders, habeas corpus and rights to enemy combatants, enacting laws to make it illegal to profile Muslims, and elimination of the Patriot Act and wire tapping programs?

We have our first elected Muslim congressman, who took his oath of office on the Qur’an, not the Bible. Since the Qur’an says belief must be absolute, will his allegiance be to the U.S. Constitution, or the Qur’an? He would not answer this question when questioned by reporters.

Not a problem? You may want to check out the situation in England with their elected Muslim representatives and judges.

Over 6,300 Muslim-inspired terrorist attacks have taken place worldwide since 9/11, and jihadists have threatened even the Pope’s life. Why do our leaders in Washington continue to refer to Islam as a religion of peace?

The time has come for all concerned Americans to either rise up and take a stand or acquiesce and sink further into a state of apathy.

History has proven that a democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) usually followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

During those 200 years, these nations have progressed through the following sequence:

from bondage to spiritual faith

from spiritual faith to great courage

from great courage to liberty

from liberty to abundance

from abundance to complacency

from complacency to apathy

from apathy to governmental dependency

from governmental dependency back into bondage


Where are we today?

Many believe we’re somewhere between the ‘apathy’ and the ‘complacency’ phase, with some 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the ‘governmental dependency’ phase.


Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free … Ronald Reagan



Click to view and hear the origin of all of the above -- the most powerful, urgent, wake-up call I have seen issued to the nearing brain-dead American citizenry (present company excluded, of course). You will not spend a more meaningful five minutes anywhere. May the media be damned for their purposeful, agenda-driven, and life- liberty- and sovereignty-lethal gross negligence.

~ joanie

1/13/2007

Those Were The Days, My Friend

FreedomofSpeech.jpg
’Freedom of Speech’ by Norman Rockwell

It’s nearly 4 AM and I’m suffering from a spate of insomnia. It’s hard to sleep when you’re spitting nails. You probably are too, or soon will be …

See if you can wrap your mind around the latest travesty that is seeking to pass itself off as Constitutional legislation. I’ve been having a lot of trouble absorbing the extent of the evil embodied in the democrats’ most recent assault on my, and your, inalienable rights. My mind prefers to be in a state of denial about this one. Accepting it would be tantamount to an admission that I no longer wield any power at all in the political arena, and that the final nail has been driven into the coffin of government ‘of, by and for the people’.

As if the McCain-Feingold ‘Campaign Finance Reform’ bill weren’t a despicable enough example of the left’s determination to suppress the voice of the average citizen in the political process, the new democrat-controlled senate has introduced yet another assault on the First Amendment -- at least that portion of it that guarantees free speech to the average citizen, and those grassroots organizations that attempt to work in his behalf. As is generally the case, the big guys are exempt from the chains that are being prescribed for you and me.

The ‘grassroots lobbying’ section of newly introduced U.S. Senate Bill 1 (Section 220) contains burdensome reporting requirements, mandatory on a quarterly basis, for just the kinds of grassroots groups that have organized to look out for you and me. And there are civil fines of up to $100,000 if they fail to comply with the new federal dictates.

Under Senate Bill 1, any grassroots lobbying organization -- i.e., again, most of the groups that you and I support, and to whom we look for information that the media choose not to publicize or disclose -- would have to report the issues, the names and specifics of their employees, and how much they spend on what is called ‘paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying’ (note that the vagueness of that particular phrase is cavernous).

The groups affected are defined as ‘any organizations that encourage five hundred or more members of the general public to contact Congress’ (*gasp!* -- we can’t have the American people contacting Congress! That would lead to the dreaded ‘A-word’ – accountability).

This massive and burdensome reporting requirement will kick in if the organization plans to do one of two things: (1) request a face-to-face or written communication, regarding a question or concern about public policy, with someone in the executive or legislative branch, or (2) encourage citizens to contact the executive or legislative branch (again, ‘encouraging’ is not defined, so the wording leaves significant room for interpretation by those on the Hill, and their buddies in the judiciary, who want to silence any opposition, or any group that seeks to make public what is going on within the walls of the senate, house, or the administration).

There is no minimum dollar spending floor. Any grassroots organization that attempts to arouse the citizenry to thought or action, or merely seeks to inform, will be expected to jump through a myriad of expensive and time-consuming bureaucratic hoops -- so many of them that a significant number of these groups will become severely financially strained. They will be forced to keep detailed records of expenditures on informing the public about any issue: their consulting fees, printing or broadcast/telecast costs, postage, advertising, personnel, etc.

Obviously, the cost of meeting these bureaucratic regulations will be prohibitive. And that is precisely the reason for this proposed legislation: to keep you and me from learning those tyrannical, unconstitutional legislative travesties of which the 'powers that be' would prefer we remain ignorant.

Perhaps the unkindest cut of all is contained in the fact that the bill makes broad exemptions for larger, organized groups who employ paid lobbyists – those who don’t rely primarily on grassroots communication to get their messages out (i.e., unions, large corporations, etc.) The Teamsters, the NEA, AARP, moveon.org, and other leftist ‘membership’ groups will not fall under the bill’s bureaucratic mandates.

Ain’t that convenient for those in ‘leadership’ positions who believe the Constitution is outmoded – i.e., would-be tyrants, one-world agenda adherents, and elitists?

I would suggest that we all call or e-mail our senators and voice our outrage, but it will take a major activist movement to stop this particular steamroller. And, since most of the grassroots movements that will be suffocated (some of them even extinguished) under this bill came into being precisely because the media is failing to inform, you can bet that this particular bill will be kept under tight wraps by those very same media. Negligent journalism, at best – conspiratorial, more likely.

Welcome to Amerika.

~ joanie

(S.1, Sec.220)

1/07/2007

Genuine Conservatism:
No Blind Lock-Step Involved


I posted the following response to a member of another political forum this afternoon, in response to a comment he made to me. One of the regular posters here on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed suggested that I post it here as well.

I am tired of being labeled a ‘traitor’ to the party because I have become increasingly critical of the Bush administration and the 107th-109th congresses. I believe that most of the readers here feel the same, but also welcome opposing opinions. :)

_____________________

'Because your political glass was only 70% full you threw a temper tantrum and poured yourself a glass 100% full of political poison. Well go drink it and quit wasting our time with your petulant whining. You wanted the Dems in power, YOU got it.'

My political glass hasn’t been seventy percent full since the last Reagan administration.

Tell you what. I’m going to list the biggest grievances I have against the ‘republicans’ who have run the show for the past six years – as well as the few examples of conservative progress for which I have to give them credit. I suspect you can provide a similar list, with different headings.

First, the biggest negatives:

(1) As President Bush has said, there is no doubt that confronting Islamic fascism on foreign soil is significantly preferable to confronting it here on our own soil.

But, if we make the commitment to do so, it should be a full-fledged commitment. We should re-deploy troops that are performing non-military duty around the world, or who are assigned in non-essential areas, and place those troops in strategic areas along the Iraq border so as to stop the constant infiltration of insurgents and agitators from Iran and Syria.

As we did in Vietnam, we are fighting this war with one hand tied behind our backs. In this case we are feverishly bailing the boat while stubbornly refusing to seal the leak. A large number of American troop and Iraqi citizen fatalities are the simple result of the fact that we continue to allow Iranian and Syrian instigators, and equipment, to flow, virtually unfettered, into the war zone.

This war was waged for valid reasons. It is being prosecuted poorly. And the left-leaning politicians and media decision-makers are having a field day as a result.

If this war becomes our Vietnam II, we will have the democrats on the Hill and media propagandists to blame, once again. But the administration will have provided them the tools.

(2) Four major initiatives, all of which are abominations to genuine conservatives, were put on the books during the republicans’ reign, all of which would have made the Founders weep in disbelief:

Campaign Finance Reform

CFR’s major focus is to silence the voice of the individual in the political process, in deference to the gargantuan power of special interest groups and lobbyists, and the general unconstitutional over-reaching power that the state now has in all of our lives and liberties -- even down to issues of what we may say, and when and where we may say it … and the First Amendment be damned.

The Creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

Why is our leadership in Washington concerning itself with the security of the continent when the security of our republic is in such toxic disrepair, and when the threats to our lives and liberties have never been greater? And why should the U.S. enter into a security partnership with a country whose political and military leadership continues to demand that the most vulnerable aspect of our national security remains unaddressed, and who benefits from our exposed vulnerability?

In order for this agreement to succeed, America’s existence as a sovereign nation must cease to exist, the idea must be promoted that self-interest, self-protection and personal success is wicked and intolerant, and that a ‘we-are-the-world/equality-of-outcome’ mindset is a sign of a compassionate, highly advanced culture. It is an insidious partnership that primarily benefits Mexico, while, at the same time, handcuffing the American citizen and penalizing him for his relative prosperity.

The No Child Left Behind Act

Most genuine conservatives want to begin to limit the power of the federal government in education regulation. Many (President Reagan in particular) have sought to abolish the Department of Education altogether. The abomination known as No Child Left Behind dramatically increases the stranglehold that the federal government has on local education standards, buries administrators and teachers in a mountain of paperwork, provides very little individual attention to, or curriculum-focus on, students who excel, promotes cookie-cutter educational mediocrity, and has forced many schools to almost single-mindedly gear their curriculum requirements toward meeting arbitrary standards, many of which completely ignore both the history and importance of Western Civilization, and the basics of math, science and the English language.

The Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization Act

A $400 billion socialist/entitlement/wealth redistribution program. It is the largest expansion of Medicare since the program was created in 1965.

In all fairness, I believe this President and his republican congress have accomplished two major conservative victories in the past six years: the appointment of two excellent Supreme Court Justices, and the providing of tax relief. But, when one compares the lists of plusses with the list of minuses, the feeling of betrayal is overwhelming.

(3) Some final words on the immigration crisis:

No genuine conservative champions open borders and guest worker programs for twelve million criminals who are bleeding the American taxpayer dry. When forced to, the president and most republicans on the Hill talk about the vital importance of national security, but they somehow can't see fit to secure our borders. For some of them, the only national security issues of any importance are located in the Middle East.

I consider my security breached when:

(1) Islamic operatives can freely enter my country across a two-thousand mile border.

(2) The fruits of my labor will be siphoned off, by an increasingly unaccountable federal government, to pay for social services, education, legal fees and court costs for criminals who are living and working in this country illegally.

(3) Representatives of the Mexican government are allowed to have a say (sometimes even more of a say than the American citizenry) as to how, and how resolutely, we patrol the very borders across which their own countrymen are invading our republic.

(4) Our administration and congress issue angry, patriotic, self-righteous political rhetoric over the firing of ballistic missiles from North Korea, and yet, passively and silently, know and conceal the fact that nuclear/biological/chemical contaminants and weapons can even more easily find their way into this country in a suitcase carried across our unguarded southern border.

(5) Many in leadership positions view as ‘racist’ or ‘intolerant’ those who decry the arrogant, parasitic, and anti-American-sovereignty agenda of a radical separatist organization like La Raza, and the alien criminal element it champions, while pandering to the worst kind of genuine racism, if and only if it furthers a political end and the amassing of globalst/elitist power.

If believing all of the above places me in your ’petulant whiner’ category, so be it. Genuine conservatives have always marched to a particularly clear and well-defined beat, and there is no blind lock-step involved.

~ joanie

1/06/2007

The Tale of the Invisible
Seven-Hundred-Mile Fence


We had a wonderful discussion this week under the column entitled ‘A Terrible Tipping Point’. A good many of the comments focused on the danger represented by the increasing availability to islamic terrorists of the components necessary to construct a portable nuclear device – which has the potential to wreak significantly more death and destruction, and long-term damage to our environment and infrastructure, than the tragic events of 9/11/01.

There have been countless meaningless rumblings, and one actual piece of ‘legislation’ (not suprisingly, still unsupported by the funds to back it up) from congress -- all aimed at suppressing citizen outrage regarding our open borders, but none of which is destined to see realization.

When it comes to genuinely and resolutely addressing the crisis occurring across our southern border, everything that emanates from Washington is simply window dressing. To the majority of opportunistic traitors in our government, the invasion that is destroying our national identity, making a mockery of the rule of law, rewarding insidious parasitic behavior, and putting every American citizen in danger, is secondary in importance to the desire to increase their voting base, the lure of cheap labor, or the vision of a one-world borderless utopia. And don’t tell me the fundamental nature of the above does not fall under the definition of treason (common synonyms: betrayal, disloyalty, duplicity).

Tom Tancredo, in his book In Mortal Danger, writes:

We have the necessary technology, combined with human resources, to secure our borders tomorrow. It is a canard for politicians to say that it is impossible and that we must figure out a different way to defend America rather than defending our borders. What they are really saying is, ‘I choose not to defend and secure our borders because there are political ramifications that I fear.’ It is those fears that put the life of every American citizen in mortal danger.

Every day that our borders remain porous physically endangers every one of us, as a result of the increase in violent crime that invariably accompanies the influx of the criminals, and it drains our economy and our education and healthcare systems because many of the parasites demand and receive the same services that the rest of us have earned. But, much worse, it increases the likelihood (becoming more of a certainty with the passage of time and the inaction of those whose charge it is to ensure our safety and sovereignty) that there is an ever-increasing number of terrorists among us, some of whom have brought with them the means for our destruction.

Jerome Corsi, author of Unfit for Command, discusses the threat that both nuclear suitcase bombs, and dirty bombs, pose in his more recent book, Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians:

... the threat of dirty bombs is real, though we should not assume that a dirty bomb would be the weapon of choice, especially not for a group of skilled terrorists who would have the backing of a nuclear-armed rogue state such as Iran. The mad mullahs and their terrorist associates would, if possible, opt for a much more deadly scenario, one that could truly bring the civilized world to its knees in the space of one day. If serious terrorists are going to spend their time devising attacks, the terror masters directing them will move to the most feasible attack that can cause the maximum amount of damage. Why bother with anything less?

Whatever their eventual modus operandi may be -- future attacks of a nuclear, chemical, biological, or other sort -- the facts are clear: there are already countless islamic cells within our borders. They are proselytizing and recruiting in mosques, schools, and prisons. And we continue to allow more of them, and additional 'equipment', to enter this country virtually unfettered.

With such an unprecedented, deadly threat staring us in the face, and virtually nothing keeping islamic operatives from simply strolling across our southern border ... suitcase in hand ... with what are the president and congress occupying themselves?

The piously declared ‘new era’ in Washington is being ushered in with significant fanfare and air of self-importance. Will the much-touted ‘new Iraq policy’, an increase in the minimum wage, expansion of embryonic stem-cell research, a tightening of ethics rules (where have we heard that before, and which of the ‘fool-me-once’-challenged among us continues to believe such pap?), and the inexhaustible fountain of nonsense posing as issues of importance, have any relevance when one of more of our cities are reduced to rubble, and our countrymen are suffering in debilitating ways that our minds cannot even begin to comprehend?

Not only is our government reneging on its promise to build a physical barrier to prevent the continuing flood of illegals of all stripes (islamic terrorists surely among them). Our fearless leaders are also stationing our countrymen at the border, putting their lives in extreme danger, and forbidding them to do what needs to be done to fulfill their duties.

Yesterday National Guard troops stationed along the Arizona border were forced to retreat when confronted by hostile criminals intent on crossing. Unable to engage the enemy because their role is bureaucratically defined as not to extend beyond an administrative capacity, members of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world had no choice but to retreat at their own border, when confronted by armed criminals seeking to cross (story).

Every informed American knows that the goal of islamic terrorists is to bring America to her knees, in as brutal and violent a manner as possible. We also know that we have it entirely within our power to at least dramatically reduce the probability that they will succeed. Yet our own leadership is forbidding us to do so, when the single most vital responsibility of our government is to defend our territorial integrity.

When (not if) the next, and much more deadly and virulent, terrorist attack occurs here on American soil, upon whom do we lay the blame for the torment and suffering that will befall thousands, if not millions, of our innocent countrymen? Do we hate the madmen who have made no secret of their desire to destroy us? Or do we reserve a more potent brand of hatred for those calculating pretenders among us who claim to be our protectors, while at the same time placing their insatiable thirst for personal power above the very lives and liberties of those whose trust and commission they consistently debase, and deliberately betray?

The American government is as much an enemy of the American people as is any Middle Eastern terrorist organization. And, if wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing deceit contributes to degree of malevolence, then the wickedness of those who claim to represent us, and who claim to have our best interests at heart, is beyond measure.

The American Crisis is worsening by the day, while our leadership continues to turn a convenient blind eye, polishing their primping and posturing skills, and offering up meaningless, toothless, mirage ‘solutions’ to a cancer that threatens to eventually render our individual liberty and sovereignty extinct.

It would appear that the future of our republic rests on the shoulders of the American patriot. We are walking down a path ... certainly not well-lit, nor well-traveled ... that has not existed in our lifetimes, or those of our parents or grandparents. We must continue to keep the Founders’ vision primary in our focus, and always look to Him for guidance.

I believe I hear them weeping, and imploring us to reflect on the glorious history of this republic, the monumental sacrifices that were required to make it so, and the need to assure her future (‘to provide new guards for [her] future security’) ... before the time and opportunity to do so has passed.

~ joanie

1/03/2007

What Better Way to Welcome the New Year Than To Recognize a Hero on the Home Front ...


-Wesley Autrey-

A Good Samaritan jumped onto the tracks at a Manhattanville subway station at 137th Street and Broadway this afternoon to save the life of a stranger who had fallen after having an apparent seizure.

The man stumbled off the platform onto the tracks, where he could have been killed if not for the heroic efforts of 50-year-old Wesley Autrey who did the unthinkable, jumping onto the tracks with a train approaching.

"He was stuck and I was like, 'Wow. Do I struggle here?' If I got him up, then I would have to go for the ground. And I didn't have that much time. So I just went for the gutter thing," said Autrey. "I just dove on top of him and held him down, cause I knew there would be enough clearance for us."

Autrey, a construction worker who lives in the neighborhood, grabbed the man and pinned him down in the gutter between the running rails while a downtown 1 train passed overhead, miraculously leaving both men without a scratch.

"I had to have the guy pinned down, because like I said, he was in a seizure," said Autrey. "He was incoherent. He was fighting, pushing and pushing against me. So I had to lock myself down, so he wouldn't push me back, and possibly my head get hit."

Autrey's two young daughters, ages four and six, who were with him at the time of the incident, watched in horror while the situation unfolded. When the train finally came to a stop, Autrey called out to them to let them know he was alive.

Autrey guessed there was maybe an inch or inch and a half clearance between his head and the underside of the train.

"Remember, the gutter maybe got like a 12-inch drop. So his body fitted in there perfectly. And I just laid on top of him, and had to pin him down," he said.

The man Autrey saved was taken to St. Luke's hospital as a precautionary measure, where he is listed in stable condition. He is expected to recover.

When asked if he considers himself a hero, Autrey said absolutely not. He said he was just doing what he thinks anyone else would do.

"No, I don't consider myself a hero," he said. "I just went to someone's aid. Someone who was in need of help."

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