If you would like to add a comment to any of the threads here on AADB, registration with blogspot.com is not required. Simply click on the ‘comments’ link at the bottom of an essay, and either enter a nickname under ‘choose an identity’ or post your comment anonymously. Serious comments are always welcome.



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

10/25/2007

The Foundation of the ‘American Philosophy’: Life, Liberty, Vigilance and Courage

remember liberty.jpg

John Cooper, a good friend and regular contributor here, posted under the previous essay a link to a brilliant article by André Glucksmann, entitled, From the H-Bomb to the Human Bomb: Modern terrorism seeks to combine the annihilating power of Hiroshima with the nihilistic gospel of Auschwitz.

I urge you all to read the article, and then to respond to John’s observation that the gist of the article is that philosophy moves nations, followed by his question, ‘What is the American philosophy’?

It seems to me that ‘the American philosophy’, if examined in the most elementary terms, was originally defined in all of our founding documents, refined over the ensuing century and a half, and then pretty much abandoned in the mid-twentieth century, which explains why this nation is now adrift without anchor, and out of view of safe harbor.

Philosopher and once close associate of Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, observed that ‘The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea — and the idea was liberty.’

Indeed!

Our republic was founded by decent, visionary men whose goal was to establish a country whose people harbored a genuine, undying reverence for the God-given gifts of life and individual liberty.Yet sometimes the simplest gifts are the most beautiful …. and the most difficult to retain. You see, they are so easily taken for granted. In an effort to establish that vision, our Founders also drew up a blueprint for minimal government, whose role would be the same: to respect and defend life and individual liberty. Nothing more, and nothing less. Both within our borders and without.

Of course, over the past two-plus centuries, there have been many glaring exceptions to the life/liberty reverence -- both in our government’s relation to us, and in its interference in other nations’ affairs. But, as a rule, America has continued to stand for those two noble concepts -- here, and wherever else they have been threatened, and where we felt called to intervene in their defense. Greece under Truman, and Grenada under Reagan are just two of dozens of recent examples that come to mind.

There are -- always have been, and forever will be -- people, and belief systems, in this world in which neither human life nor individual liberty are considered of significant worth. And it is with those people, and belief systems, that the fundamental vision of this nation has been at odds for more than two centuries. Communism and radical Islam are the two most provocative enemies that we have known in that regard in my lifetime. But there will always be forces at work which seek to destroy life and liberty for the sake of power/ideology/’religious doctrine’. Those forces go by different names, but under the façade lurks the same dark and devious heart that seeks to declare some men of less value than others.

Something that has troubled me for a long time now is the increasing movement in this country toward diminishing the value of both (life and liberty). And in continuing to allow that erosion of vision to happen, we are losing our once-unique and noble identity. (There are those who say the demeaning of life and liberty has always been a definitive part of this culture …. it was merely more covert in the past. I do not agree.)

What concerns me is that we, as a nation, are falling away from serving as an example that other nations can emulate. There are many reasons for the decay -- the gradual, but continual, removal of God from our public consciousness, parental permissiveness, the influence of television/entertainment, the welfare/entitlement state, the leftist curricula in public and higher education, etc. But the most unfortunate outcome of that time when the less than noble finally outnumber the noble in this country will be that there will be no nation willing to stand as an example, or step in when stepping in to preserve life or liberty is necessary -- and whether the stepping in is popular with the majority of mankind or not. Because the sad fact is that the majority of mankind, if given the choice, tends to choose the path of least resistance. It’s the nature of the beast. But up until now -- and with few exceptions -- it has not been the nature of this republic.

Our Revolution served as the cornerstone for our republic form of government, based on that unyielding belief in the sanctity of human life and individual liberty. The civilization which grew out of the faith, and bloodshed, and courage, and resolve, and vision that was embodied in that Revolution was once the most moral, prosperous, ‘civilized’ nation on earth. We were once pretty much of one mind as regards the importance of individual liberty in maintaining that national morality and prosperity. And therein lay our strength – our unified national resolve: liberty at any cost.

It now appears that liberty -- or at least a significant portion of each individual’s -- may be bartered on a whim. Why then all the bloodshed two hundred-plus years ago? No whim was that. How did this republic mold its once unique and unsurpassed national character? By meekly handing over just a little bit more of our freedom each time an enemy blustered – so that the government (that dragon that our Founders so carefully sought -- through bloody battle, and careful deliberation -- to keep constrained) could protect us from others who would steal those same liberties? Was there ever a dichotomy of a more perilous sort?

Two hundred-plus years, accompanied by material wealth and affluence and (late arriving on the scene, but loaded for bear) concomitant leftist cradle-to-grave indoctrination by the public education system and the mainstream media has brought us to this sorrowful place we’re at. A populace that values creature comforts more than freedom. That prefers to rely on media/literary/political experts to do their thinking for them, rather than putting their own brain cells into personal intuitive/creative/analytical drive. Fertile ground for an insidious, liberty-thieving indoctrination/propaganda machine if there ever were any.

Lack of ‘vigilance’ (in the form of knowledge of one’s roots and commitment to their protection and nurturing), accompanied by lack of courage, has probably enslaved more people -- either through violent overthrow or gradual encroachment -- over the history of mankind than any other fatal combination.

I was born after World War II, but I (and I believe most others who stop by here) have learned second-hand what those who experienced the horrors of that war witnessed firsthand. It is we post-war Americans who haven’t taken the time to examine our roots, and the offshoots that grew out from them over the past two-plus centuries, who have no mental image to conjure up, whenever our government speaks nobly of abrogating our liberties for the sake of preserving them.

Man has an unfortunate penchant to look the other way after a major world cataclysm has occurred. We emerged victorious from World War II, and we, at least subliminally, told ourselves that human evil had been defeated, or at least contained – unwilling to allow ourselves to remember that evil is eternal, that we cannot ‘rest on our laurels’ or stop looking over our shoulders.

At any victory party after which evil has been contained, it must be the charge of at least a handful of the partygoers to be guarding the door. And, after the party is over, while the sun continues to shine, that handful’s calling must assume much more critical proportions, in order to begin (subtly at first, because man enjoys his party time, and after-reflection) to instill in the populace a renewed sense of vigilance. There must be a consistent reminder that cloudy days are not a thing of the past, and that some clouds conceal potential danger, serving as forewarnings of major destructive storms. Such clouds require serious, constant scrutiny by educated, world-wise eyes.

It is because we have been negligent in providing those eyes that the continued implementation of our American philosophy has deteriorated beyond recognition.

In the article mentioned in the first paragraph above, the author himself says of the human tendency to revert to the convenience of a short attention-span rather than remaining ever vigilant:

The worst of the storm has barely passed, and one is busy ‘moving on’—renovating dead-end roads, regilding the clocks of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. We turn away from reality and its truths, which are neither easy to live with nor pleasant to talk about. Before long, repression is complete.

Four of the most eloquent and concise, if lesser quoted, examples of our Founders’ vision are represented below. And the absolute necessity to ‘stand guard’ over that vision is implicit in every word:

(1) Thomas Paine in Common Sense on the need for eternal vigilance on many fronts:

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the ‘doctrine of reconciliation’, may be included within the following descriptions: Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men, who cannot see; prejudiced men, who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent, than all the other three.

(2) From Declaration of the Causes and Necessity
of Taking Up Arms
(1775), reiterating the need for vigilance:

In our own native land, in defense of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it -- for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.

(3) Samuel Adams (from a speech delivered to the State House in Philadelphia in 1776):

Our Union is now complete; our Constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties …
You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries … Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country … For my own part I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory.


(4) Thomas Paine, again, in The Rights of Man:

While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly some of its members remarked that if a declaration of rights were published it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess …

… nor can any country be called free whose government does not take its beginning from the principles they contain, and continue to preserve them pure.


It is in the last of these quotes, perhaps more than any other of our founding documents, that a real description of the source of our current national malaise – and deadly vulnerability -- lies. And the symptoms of that malaise are allowing our enemies, both external and internal, to bring our republic down.

Paine prudently observed above that, along with a declaration of, and belief in, the sanctity of individual rights, must also come a declaration of duties (responsibilities) … and that a free people must always ensure that their government consistently continues to preserve them [the individual rights it is created to protect] pure.

Now, perhaps more than at any time in the history of mankind, we -- not just Americans, but all freedom-loving people -- must practice the kind of vigilance that will both ensure the existence of freedom, and see to it that our own government does not successfully join forces with those who would bring us to our knees. That kind of vigilance is borne of a knowledge of history and the attendant understanding that there will always be a predator at the door – either domestic or foreign, but a predator nonetheless.

When a society becomes sufficiently enrapt of bread-and-circus activities, and sufficiently diverted from guarding the door, that society’s days are numbered.

My good friend, First_Salute, in his essay, We Only Have the Rights We Defend, as Long as We are Able reflects:

No system of government will preserve for us what is our own responsibility to defend. And for all the fury which might release upon catastrophic failures by our government officials to uphold the lawful laws, no recovery is possible without the people being well-informed of what is our responsibility and trust ... and duty to restore.

Speaking passionately about the fact that vigilance is an imperative in a free society, Edmund Burke cautioned, in Speech on Conciliation With America (1775) --- that the citizens of a free society must ‘augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in A World Split Apart, his
commencement address Delivered At Harvard University in 1978, warned:

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage … Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life … Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the first symptom of the end?

Clarence Thomas, addressing the in American Enterprise Institute in 2001, in a speech entitled Be Not Afraid warned:

I do believe that we are required to wade into those things that matter to our country and our culture, no matter what the disincentives are, and no matter the personal cost. There is not one among us who wants to be set upon, or obligated to do and say difficult things. Yet, there is not one of us who could in good conscience stand by and watch a loved one or a defenseless person --- or a vital national principle --- perish alone, undefended, when our intervention could make all the difference. This may well be too dramatic an example. But nevertheless, put most simply: if we think that something is dreadfully wrong, then someone has to do something.

Our Founders created the blueprint for a government focused on the sanctity of human life and liberty, where the people’s voice would forever outweigh government mandate. They also repeatedly warned us that preservation of such a noble society requires constant vigilance, and repeated action, with courage in passionate defense of liberty as the igniting spark.

Yet, despite the preciousness of our ancestral inheritance, our vigilance has devolved into ignorance and inattention, and our courage has transformed into apathy.

A rebirth … even an ascension … is needed. And we have fallen so far that the ascension must be tantamount to climbing onto a new evolutionary plane. We have no choice but to focus on higher realms. The alternative is unthinkable.

~ joanie

10/20/2007

The Pillars of Creation

Pillars of Creation.jpg

I believe this photo is now over twelve years old but I still find it fascinating and genuinely awe-inspiring.

I found myself thinking of it today and was struggling with the scale of it all. I am no astronomer, but I understand this is a star factory. It is called the Eagle Nebula, with its soaring star factories dubbed the Pillars of Creation. It is star birth in action, all captured in vivid color by the Hubble Space Telescope.

The scale of it is so difficult to comprehend but our Earth would not show up in any way if it were placed within in the scale of this photograph.

While I am not suggesting we all sit around star gazing, the scale of creation in general can be useful in putting everyday issues in perspective.

I recently had to deal with a rather peeved team member over some extra ‘compassionate leave’ given to a colleague at the time a family member died. Peeved team member had lost his father earlier this year and had been given a total of seven days leave in addition to his normal twenty-five days holiday. However at the age of forty-eight he could not countenance that someone might get more compassionate leave than he did.

As diplomatically as I could I implied that it was none of his business and it was a matter for HR, the powers that be in such matters. He grumbled that, if the colleague were given more leave than he, he would want some retroactive compassionate leave.

I tried to end the conversation having already taken half an hour on ‘the issue’. I was frankly bemused that a man of forty-eight years could be so petty, so jealous, so pathetic in his desire for ‘equality’ in work. He has worked too long in the office, has lost his sense of perspective and, although fundamentally a nice man, has become embittered in his pursuit of equal treatment, when in reality there will never be equal or certainly not identical treatment of human situations that always vary and are never the same.

If I hadn't been constrained by the need to act ‘professionally’ and the somber nature of circumstances behind compassionate leave I would have laughed at the very concept that he could get compassionate leave retroactively.

I find the sense of entitlement and the concern over office life amazing in one who seems to have lived most of life's main experiences.

Perhaps I'll take a print of the pillars into work sometime. Maybe it could just bring home that our lives are but one tiny portion of all life that is spread over time and space. Against that, the leave of a colleague might assume slightly less significance than it does at present.

by Luis
(contributing team member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

10/17/2007

Treason Revisited ... or ...
'When Will Enough Be Enough?'

Treason.jpg

I have been wanting to sit down and write a scathing essay on the House’s recent proposed resolution regarding the World War I era genocide perpetrated against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, but sufficient free time has not presented itself over the past few days.

Last night, John Cooper, a good friend and a regular contributor here, sent me the following article from Investor’s Business Daily. The article says exactly what I would have said, and says it much better, so I offer it here for your consideration as evidence of perhaps the most egregious and evil example of treason under consideration in our lifetimes – because it places our fighting men and women in significantly more grave danger than even the litany of previous treasonous words and actions committed by the American congress.

It is time for a major change in the fabric of ‘leadership’ in America. When a physical revolution becomes the only remaining option for us, we need to pray that our outrage will not be silenced by creatures to whom personal power is more precious than human life and liberty.

Pelosi’s Premium

Congress' foolish move to declare the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire a genocide will have an impact far beyond politics. It affects you both in your pocketbook and in your security.

No question, Armenians have a right to seek recognition of their people's suffering. The Ottoman Turks slaughtered an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in one of the largest ethnic cleansing operations ever, lasting roughly from 1915 to 1923. It sure seems like genocide to us or at least something very much akin to that odious practice.

But congressional Democrats weren't interested in justice when they voted on this resolution. They had political mischief in mind.

Those who pushed the resolution saw a chance to pander to an aggrieved but well-heeled group Armenian-Americans while damaging U.S. ties with Turkey, a key ally in the war on terror.

For Democrats, what could be better? Shore up their Armenian-American support at home, while making it harder for President Bush to win in Iraq a war Democrats have come to loathe, even though they voted for it. Win-win, as political strategists like to say.

Yet what they actually did was stab U.S. troops in Iraq in the back, forcing the military to scramble to find new ways to supply our soldiers in case the Turks, as threatened, close our base at Incirlik. (More than two-thirds of our Iraq supplies go through that base.)

Not content to merely to make our soldiers' lives more difficult and risky, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies have helped create a sharp spike in crude oil prices.

After Turkey's government warned on Oct. 7 that the declaration on Armenian genocide might damage U.S.-Turkey ties, the price of oil jumped from $79.03 a barrel to $87.61 Tuesday, a gain of 11%, or nearly $9 a barrel, in a little over a week.

The Democrats' move, blamed by oil traders for the upsurge in crude, has increased our monthly national oil bill by roughly $3.53 billion at current import rates. That's about $42 billion a year. Call it the Stupidity Tax.

Hit hardest will be the poor. A fuel tax is regressive, meaning it falls heaviest on those at the bottom. We're surprised we've not seen this levy dissected in detail by the mainstream media. But they've gone strangely quiet.

Who knows if oil will continue to rise following the Democrats' attempt to hijack foreign policy? It could trigger a recession one the Democrats and the left-leaning media would blame on Bush.

So as you pull up to the gas pump and watch the digits rise ever higher, please avoid cursing OPEC's potentates or China or Hugo Chavez or whatever. This time, you've paid the Pelosi Premium.

Worse than oil prices, though, are the Pelosi Democrats' intentional damage to our Iraq War effort. Her party doesn't have the courage to end the war by defunding it, which it could do. Instead, it's creating chaos in the Middle East, where Turkey has threatened to send forces into Iraq to pursue Kurdish guerrillas.

On Tuesday, the head of Turkey's parliament warned Pelosi that "it might take decades to heal negative effects of the bill if it passes." Pelosi knows that neither the current government nor any citizens of modern Turkey committed the atrocities against the Armenians. She also knows the horrible timing of the genocide resolution means big trouble for the U.S. Yet she doesn't care.

Well, we do; so should you. Successful democracy depends on goodwill from both sides of the debate. That's now in short supply, at least for one party.

Investor's Business Daily

~ joanie

10/14/2007

On Accountability

Accountability.jpg

A brief local illustration of the arrogance of government officials:

Here in rural, normally relatively crime-free Lancaster County, over the past four years we have experienced two major crimes that made national and world headlines:

- 1 -

Last October, Charles Roberts entered the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Bart Township, equipped with four weapons (a deer rifle, a shotgun, a hand gun, and a stun gun), five hundred rounds of ammunition, a knife, a filled toolbox, a truss board, and a tube of sexual lubricant.

He released the boys and the adults, then bound the arms and legs of ten young school girls (ranging in age from six to thirteen-years-old), lined them up at the chalkboard, and, when local authorities surrounded the school and demanded that he release his hostages and surrender, he then began to shoot the girls, execution style.

The end result was that five of the young girls either died at the school or later succumbed to their head injuries, and one remains on life support, and is now at home with her family, never expected to emerge from anything more than a vegetative state.

Nickel Mines.jpg

Charles Roberts, the killer, was reportedly scheduled to undergo an employment-related drug test the following day.

- 2 -

Most likely due to its rural location and yet its proximity to a Pennsylvania Turnpike exit, a small family-owned well-drilling company, located just a few miles from our home, served as the infamous location of the dumping of assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna’s body in December of 2003.

Jonathan Luna.jpg

At the time, Luna was purportedly investigating a case in which several high-profile state or national politicians were involved.

For those who may not remember, Luna was stabbed thirty-six times with his own penknife and was discovered ‘drowned’ in a little creek behind a local well-drilling company. He had left a Baltimore courthouse the night of December 4, 2003, and, according to court records, instead of going home managed to make his way to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, exiting at the exit nearby our house without his E-Z pass, but using, instead, a blood-stained toll ticket.

Presumably shortly thereafter, he continued to stab himself many more times with his own knife, drive his car into the foot-deep creek behind the local business:

Sensenig Well Drilling.jpg

... crawl under the front end of the car just beneath the engine, and drown. A bizarre way of ‘committing suicide’, to any rational mind.

Also contributing to the ‘bizarre suicide’ scenario is the fact that a pool of blood was found on the floor of the rear area of the car. Then again, Luna may well have been a contortionist of sorts, able to somehow reach a car’s steering wheel from the floor of the rear seat.

In the nearly four years since the ‘suicide,’ and despite a $100,000 federal reward for information about Luna’s death, no suspects or motives for a possible homicide have been uncovered.

Because requests by Luna’s family to conduct an inquest into his death were denied, early this year the Luna family’s attorney filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to force the Lancaster County coroner to conduct one.

(End of summary of the two cases)

In a highly unusual move by the Lancaster County Republican Committee, Lancaster County coroner, Dr. G. Gary Kirchner, has not been endorsed for re-election this year. The committee instead endorsed another candidate, who won the primary election, yet Kirchner has initiated a write-in campaign in order to retain his position.

Today’s Lancaster Sunday News contains a very brief article stating that, since he took office four years ago, Kirchner has repeatedly defied state law by keeping all autopsy records, including those of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna and mass murderer Charles Roberts, private.

Pennsylvania law states that a coroner must file all of his official records on an annual basis, ‘for the inspection of all persons interested therein’. Yet Kirchner claims that autopsy reports are not public records, and that records obtained in the Joanthan Luna case, in particular, ‘would embarrass a lot of people’.

I, and many other Lancaster County residents, still harbor countless questions regarding the way five young Amish girls, and one assistant U.S. attorney, met their deaths. And at least one elected public official is not doing all that he is required to do to put those concerns to rest.

So much for public disclosure and ‘public servant’ accountability.

~ joanie

10/08/2007

The "Not So Poor" Twelve-Year-Old Who Rebutted Bush on the SCHIP Veto

SCHIP.jpg

Graeme Frost, who gave the democrat rebuttal to George Bush’s reasons for vetoing the SCHIP Bill, is a middle school student at the exclusive $20,000 per year Park School in Baltimore, MD.

Graeme was in a severe car accident three years ago, and received care paid for by the government program known as SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program).

"I was in a coma for a week and couldn't eat or stand up or even talk. My sister was even worse," Graeme wrote. "My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but we can't afford private health insurance."

His sister Gemma, also severely injured in the accident, attended the same school prior to the accident meaning the family was able to come up with nearly $40,000 per year for tuition for these 2 grade schoolers. Confirmation both attended Park found here using edit-"find on this page"- Gemma. It will take you to an article in the school's newspaper about a fundraiser for Gemma class of 16, and Graeme class of 13.

Here are photos of the school's 44,000 square foot Wyman Arts Center: two galleries, an outdoor ampitheater, Meyerhoff Theater, Macks-Fidler Black Box Theater, practice rooms, rehearsal space, and ceramics, 3-D sculpture, woodworking, jewelry, painting, photography, digital graphics studios, recording studio, and keyboard lab.

In a Baltimore Sun article the family claims to be raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. "Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work."

What the article does not mention is that Halsey Frost has owned his own company "Frostworks", since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992, so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as "bookkeeper and operations management" prior to her recent 2007 hire at the "medical publishing firm". As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.

His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The building's owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost's home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reilly's Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total.

The current market value of their improved 3,040 sqaure-foot home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 square feet. A photo taken in the family's kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets.

One has to wonder that, if time and money can be found to remodel a home, send kids to exclusive private schools, purchase commercial property and run your own business ... maybe money can be found for other things ... maybe Dad should drop his woodworking hobby and get a real job that offers health insurance rather than making people like me (also with 4 kids in a 600 square foot smaller house and tuition $16,000 less per kid and no commercial property ownership) pay for it in my taxes.

by icwhatudo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1907687/posts

10/04/2007

And I Will Not Sit With the Wicked

Koran.jpg

Koran, 5:33-34: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and his messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be to be killed or crucified, or to have their hands and feet chopped off on opposite sides, or to be expelled out of the land. Such will be their humiliation in the world, and in the next world they will face an awful horror.

Koran, 8:12: Remember Allah inspired the angels: I am with you. Give firmness to the believers. I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: you smite them above their necks and smite all their fingertips off of them.

Koran, 8:37: In order that Allah may separate the pure from the impure, put all the impure ones [all non-Muslims] one on top of another in a heap and cast them into hell. They will have been the ones to have lost.

Koran, 9:73: O Prophet! Make war against the unbelievers [all non-Muslims] and the hypocrites and be merciless against them. Their home is hell, an evil refuge indeed.

Koran, 17:16-17: When we decide to destroy a population, we send a definite order to them who have the good things in life and yet sin. So that Allah's word is proven true against them, then we destroy them utterly.

Koran, 21:11: How many were the populations we utterly destroyed because of their sins, setting up in their place other peoples.

Koran, 47:4: When you meet the unbelievers in jihad [holy war], chop off their heads. And when you have brought them low, bind your prisoners rigorously. Then set them free or take ransom from them until the war is ended.

inward bar.gif inward bar.gif inward bar.gif

Late last month, a Muslim cleric delivered the daily prayer in the U.S. Capitol before House proceedings began.

Earlier this week the American House of Representatives voted unanimously to recognize the celebration of Ramadan, and it described the Muslim faith as ‘one of the great religions of the world'.

    Resolved, That--

    (1) during this time of conflict, in order to demonstrate solidarity with and support for members of the community of Islam in the United States and throughout the world, the House of Representatives recognizes the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world; and

    (2) in observance of and out of respect for the commencement of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and spiritual renewal, the House of Representatives acknowledges the onset of Ramadan and expresses its deepest respect to Muslims in the United States and throughout the world on this significant occasion.
Tonight, the President of the United States held a reception and dinner at the White House for the express purpose of celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and joining in fellowship and prayer with Muslims officials.

One of the dozens of invited guests to the White House dinner/celebration was Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who refused to take his oath of office by placing his right hand on the Bible. Instead, he requested to be sworn in with his right hand on the Koran (see excerpts from which, above).

Today, Ramadan was also observed in various commemorative events all over Washington, D.C., including at the Capitol and the Pentagon.

Below is a single representative rendering of one of thousands of American citizens who were never invited to the White House, and who, before driving to work on September 11, 2001, surely believed that their ‘leadership’ in Washington would take any steps, no matter how costly, to ensure the sovereignty of America and the safety of her citizens.

TCjumper.jpg


Which reader here can assert that those who perpetrated the holocaust resulting in the torturous death of that American, and thousands of his countrymen, were not simply following the law of Islam, as prescribed in the Koran (excerpts from which, above)?

And the man who sat in the White House on September 11, 2001 – and sits there still – fellowshipped and prayed with a roomful of Muslim ‘believers’ tonight, in our White House, assuming our blessing.

And we thought the cigar incident in the Oval Office was grotesque.

Bush Ramadan.jpg

I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked ... Psalm 26: 4-6

~ joanie

On 'Leaders', Warriors, and 'Winners'

tri-color cone.jpg

I recently responded to a post on another website in which the poster had stated the following two opinions:

As the weapons systems have become more lethal and more accurate with overwhelming firepower per unit, the ability to cause your enemy to reach the tipping point has become that much easier without huge commitments to troop strength.

The destructive capacity of modern weapons systems serve to act as a multiplier of force or as a force neutralizer. What would an AC130 gunship do to a concentration of 25K troops on the ground? What would an ArcLight cell involving 6 BUFFs do? What would 2 MOABs do?

I felt compelled to respond, as follows:

Yes, we walked into Baghdad in three days, but so what? We are still there! We haven’t won the war, have we?

As the sun rose the next morning, I have walked through the area after a 130 gunship literally shredded everything to smithereens during the night. Yes, they are effective but we still came under gunfire from a few determined VC.

Big BUFF and all the A-10’s in the world will not end wars. Marines on the ground is what convinces the enemy that it is time to surrender. Had we gone into Iraq with ten times the number of Marines and shown that we will kill anything that resists, the war would have been won in a week.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no profit to be made in fighting wars to win them as quickly as possible, so we are still there. And we aren’t going to leave until big business decides that the profits are becoming meager for the effort expended.

Big business doesn’t give a damn who is in the White House or the Congress. We little guys down on the ground are the only ones who do and we will always be the ONLY ones who CARE.

Boeing, American Airlines, IBM, AT&T, Bank of America, you name them, they will make money no matter who is in the White House. The executive managements’ sons and daughters will never be on the ground in front line combat where the shrapnel is spilling blood. No, their sons and daughters will be in the Pentagon helping make decisions so our corporations’ profit sheets will continue to stay in the black.

Draw a cone shaped triangle with the point at the top. Now draw horizontal lines dividing the cone into thirds. Something like the picture above.

Radical left wingers are at the very bottom on the left; radical right wingers are at the very bottom on the right. People that you and I consider to be true patriots are also at the bottom, on both sides. Although, from our perspective, of course, the left is fighting for the wrong goals.

As you climb higher up the center, the cone narrows and the radicals start to fade out and get left behind. When you get to the top of the middle section, patriots have been completely abandoned. So have middle class families.

Enter the top third and now you find elite wealthy business families who are more concerned with profits than party allegiance. Get up to the top quarter and party allegiance has disappeared completely. That’s why you see big businesses making political contributions to both political parties. They don’t care who wins, just so long as they are invited to White House celebration dinners.

They fly the American flag because it's popular and makes good business sense to do so. They build everything necessary to feed the soldiers, fight the wars, heal the wounded and bury the dead because it makes good business sense to do so. As long as the profit sheet is in the black, and those black numbers are getting bigger, they are happy and proud that they are on the winning team.

Yes, that is a simplified exaggeration. There are a few patriots in the top third but they are so few I want to cry. When I think of the men who fought, shed blood and died for our flag I do cry. Money and power means more to the elites than our whole country does.

Our national sovereignty means diddly squat to him and his elite class of friends. Cheap labor is the key for these Quislings to stay in power, that's why their puppet refuses to close the borders.

These bastards want to give it all away in treaties like the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) that is coming up for a vote soon, just to keep their damn numbers in the black. Globalists like Bush make me puke.

Well, I am done rambling and I'm not in the mood to rewrite this.

Have a good one.

by B4Ranch
(contributing Team Member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)

10/03/2007

A Cure for What Ails You

tryphorgetin.jpg

I have never been one to resort to medication or drugs when there is another alternative (diet, exercise, avoidance of certain environmental situations, etc.). But I have made an exception recently.

A new wonder drug, especially suitable for people like me -- and, I suspect, many or most of the readers of this weblog – has been made available, amid little fanfare or advertisement.

Even if your diet consists of only natural or health foods, even if you are an advocate of only holistic medicine, I urge you to at least watch the attached brief video with an open mind, and consider availing yourself of a drug that I believe has the potential to enhance all of our lives to a degree that diet, exercise, or any other natural remedy cannot (please click on the icon above):

~ joanie