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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

1/18/2008

Roots and Wings

roots-wings.gif

When our children were young, we had a plaque hanging on the wall of our bedroom that read:

There are two essential things you can provide your children.
One is roots. The other is wings.

Roots, so that they might know from whence they came, and where they can always look for affirmation and love. And wings to provide a sense of independence, and the tools and the spirit to strive to be all that they can be.

A good friend, the contributor known as ‘First_Salute’ here on AADB, recently forwarded me a Wall Street Journal article entitled, What’s Gotten into Kids These Days? In it, the author describes the growing trend among children, as young as pre-school age, toward anti-social behavior, lack of self-control, irrationality, anxiety and rage.

After describing such increasingly abnormal behaviors, and referring to several ‘expert’ opinions on the frightening nationwide trend, the author concludes with the following:

Experts' recommendations contain wisdom for parents:

  • Avoid pushing your children to read, write and do math too soon, at the expense of social and emotional skills.

  • Find classrooms well-equipped to handle behavior problems.

  • Consider delaying your child's entry to large-group care.

  • Reduce children’s stress.

  • Prepare your child to control his or her own behavior, even when other children don't.
I choked on her list -- as I invariably choke on most lists compiled by modern American 'experts'.

First_Salute, in his own commentary to me, wrote:

Little minds are so vulnerable, because in their world, digesting is really most of what they do, as they attempt to learn each new ingredient necessary for their survival, and their brain is actually still growing, being wired.

To which I say ‘Amen!’ The five recommendations at the conclusion of the article above provide little or no insight as to the cause of a young child’s self-destructive behaviors – they simply provide superficial ways in which we adults might deal with them, after the fact -- after the wiring of the little brains has been weakly and ineffectually accomplished. I suggest that the reason the genuine causes of the poor wiring are ignored is that looking them square in the eye might either (1) make us entirely too uncomfortable, or (2) cause us, as a society, to have to personally sacrifice entirely too much in order to turn things around.

We want to provide our children the ‘wings’ without the ‘roots’ foundation. We want our children to fly without ever having received proper lessons in how to get off the ground or where their wings should find their strength.

It’s in the providing of those lessons that we have failed miserably.

In order to provide a child a sense of ‘roots’ we ourselves must appreciate and respect from whence we came. Yet today’s modern American has little appreciation for his ancestry (Old World, New World, familial, moral, or spiritual).

  • We don’t care about the heroes of two centuries ago who endured more hardship than we can even imagine, yet who meticulously sculpted a moral and prosperous nation from a wild frontier.

  • We don’t care about the indescribable personal sacrifices that were willingly made in order to ensure that we would be allowed to grow ‘wings’, unfettered by the iron fist of tyranny.

  • We don’t care that elite tyrants – in government, academia, and entertainment -- have more say in the formation of our children’s lives and thoughts than we do. As a matter of fact, many of us are grateful that the tyrants are willing to ‘pick up the slack’. It leaves us more time for ‘more satisfying’ personal pursuits.

  • We don’t care that those tyrants are telling our children that morality is situational. That ‘heroes’ sing well, or shoot baskets well, or are able to commit crimes without retribution – while names like Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry are unfamiliar to those same children’s ears.

  • We don’t care that the words of the major candidates for the position of leader of the free world bear no resemblance to their deeds or ideologies. Worse yet, many of us are not even aware of that fact. Nor do we care that our children are unable to tell the difference between truth and deception. We cast our ballots, if we do so at all, based on ignorance and fragmented, illusory ‘information’ -- as will our children.

  • We don’t care that our children fill their bodies with empty calories, nutrition-less, chemical-laden prepared foods – and their minds with electronic garbage posing as entertainment/education. We don’t care that the extent of their exercise consists of walking back and forth from the computer to the refrigerator.

    fast food.jpg

  • We don’t care what our children are being taught. We don’t care that they are being told that they need a detailed map, provided by ‘experts’, in order to progress from Point A to Point B – that, if they needed to blaze a trail themselves, they would panic and wither away, before having set foot beyond the boundaries of familiar ground.

  • We don’t care that our children have little knowledge of, or respect for, the lessons that previous generations can teach. We have taught them, through our own lack of interest in the lessons of history, that today is all that matters – that whatever material wealth they can wring out of today is what is of most value. The past is simply a boring blur, in which people who didn’t understand about the ‘good things of life’ existed -- if the past even existed at all.

  • We are allowing our children to believe that a sense of achievement is learned rather than earned, and that taking responsibility for one’s own actions is a sign of weakness or inability to use ‘the system’ to one’s own advantage.

  • We are teaching our children that they matter more than those around them, and that attaining happiness matters more than the means used in its pursuit.

  • Over the past four decades, our homes have grown larger and our backyards have grown smaller. We have no time to maintain a large yard, and no more games are played there anymore. Electronics do no perform well in tall grass.

    video games.jpg

  • Over the past four decades, family meals have dwindled down to each member grabbing what passes for nutrition on his way out the door or up to his own bedroom to communicate with his ‘internet family’.

  • Over the past four decades, the concept of ‘morality’, as taught by family example and discussion, and the invoking of scriptural truths, has evolved into the striving for politically-correct diversity, multiculturalism and tolerance – during which the scriptural concepts of good and evil, truth and falsehood have become dangerously passé.
ignorance.jpg

The ‘experts’ believe that, in order to provide our children the focus necessary to reclaim who they are, we must expect less of them, adapt to their ‘it takes a village’ environment, and impose upon them a myriad of other escapist politically-correct strategies -- as evidenced by the advice in the above-referenced article, and countless others that attempt to impose their will upon us every day. They would have us put a tainted band-aid on our children’s wounds, and then send them back out to play in traffic.

Our children’s roots are shallow and weak.

One cannot climb a ladder at all if the bottom rung is rotten. The ladder we have provided our children is no longer worth climbing. They will either fail at the first feeble rung, or they will be horrified at what they find at the top. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.

~ joanie

1/11/2008

A Dog's Life

A brief, light-hearted respite from the discouragement of witnessing what passes for 'the election process' in America 2008 ...

I sometimes wish I could enjoy a dog's life.

button2.gif

Our pup, Bert, recently photographed in the wee hours of the morning:

Bert 01-03-08 1a.jpg

(No, she is not momentarily stretching. That is her permanent, sound-asleep position on the arm chair next to our bed.)

Would that those of us who have been witnessing the manipulation, and borderline corruption, of the election process could attain such relaxation and peace of mind.

button2.gif

Bert, in one of her more alert moments:

BertNew.jpg

Would that the majority of the American electorate could possess the comprehension, inquisitiveness, allegiance, and desire to learn and explore, that many members of the family canidae regularly and consistently exhibit.

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Finally, I would like to offer the following two-minute video as a means of future 'therapy' for those of us who (masochistically, for sure) intend to follow this election to its bitter November end.

When you find the deceptions, biases, and betrayals too much to bear, sit yourself down in front of your trusty computer, click on this link, and enjoy two minutes of the kind of joy that comes from recognizing the 'little blessings' of life. (Them dogs sure do have the right idea. :)

Wrong Turn at Albuquerque
(AKA 'Bailey the Unknown Reindeer')

Back soon, in a more serious mode ... :)

~ joanie

1/07/2008

A Man For Our Time

Duncan Hunter 2.jpg

Take a look at what the only real conservative in this race has to do to get some attention from the media.

And pay close attention to the reaction of the four imbecile pundits who are surprised by candidate Hunter’s impromptu appearance on this morning’s MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ program.

Duncan and the Dimwits

Chris Matthews (*spit!*) will not even look at Hunter, and repeatedly attempts to talk over the point Hunter is trying to make. Pat Buchanan (*re-spit!*) does the same. The woman (proud to say I don’t know who she is so I won’t waste my spit on her) doesn’t even appear to know who Hunter is. And Joe Scarborough, the supposed ‘host’ of the program, simply does a little verbal tap dance and defers to Matthews’ prattling on about how he would prefer to talk about Obama.

Matthews and his cohorts in the mainstream media would prefer to pander to the ‘major candidates’ for president. They would prefer to discuss, ad infinitum, the platform that Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee are all promoting: the ‘need for change’, and their ‘new vision for America’.

Such ludicrous generalities might be nice if placed in a stanza of a poem by a head-in-the-clouds modern American poet, but they serve no useful purpose in today’s frightening political climate.

You say you would like more detail than that? Too bad, because it ain’t forthcoming, and the media aren’t demanding it.

We live in a superficial, sound-bite-driven society. If it doesn’t sound poetic, and its expression lasts more than the time taken up by two minutes of television advertising, the public simply isn’t interested.

‘Need for change’?

‘New vision for America?’

What could sound nicer? And (got rhythm?) who could ask for anything more?

New and more devastating terrorist attacks over the horizon? Thousands of illegals (both Mexican and otherwise) pouring across our borders every day? That’ll all be solved by Obama et al. They, after all, have a new vision. What that new vision might entail is anybody’s guess, but, then again, it’s nice to be surprised. Takes one back to one's childhood (which appears to be where many modern American citizens are permanently trapped, when it comes to taking an interest in their republic’s precarious future).

On the other hand ...

Duncan Hunter has consistently and repeatedly spelled out his position on all critical issues that face America today.

  • He has proposed detailed methods of confronting the illegal immigration crisis, including fence design and cost, detailed plans as to how we should confront the 15+ million illegals already within our borders, methods of employer verification, changes in border patrol policy, birth right citizenship reform, and non-amnesty.

  • He unequivocally supports Israel’s right to exist, and to defend itself, with partial funding for missiles and materiel from the U.S.

  • He unequivocally supports America’s efforts to promote freedom in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

  • He is vehemently opposed to the North American Union (AKA Security and Prosperity Partnership), and he co-authored a resolution stating that the U.S. should not be a party to the NAU, or allow the construction of the NAFTA Superhighway.

  • He believes that the U.S. should dramatically reduce the financial burden it carries in the United Nations, and should refuse to abide by any treaty that in any way threatens our national sovereignty.

  • He has authored a Right to Life Amendment and a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage.

  • He has taken a clear and detailed stance on educational vouchers and home schooling.

  • He has taken a clear stance on the judicial and legislative perversion of the First Amendment.

  • He is unabashedly in favor of preserving our Second Amendment rights, without qualification.

  • He is in favor of massive tax reform, including (but not limited to) removing antiquated tax provisions, permanently removing the Marriage Penalty Tax, reforming the Alternative Minimum Tax, and achieving a balanced budget by demanding efficiency, and eliminating duplicate federal programs.

  • He supports, and has authored, several bills which will greatly decrease the federal government’s power to seize private land through eminent domain.

  • He has consistently supported efforts to de-fund the National Endowment of the Arts, and has fought to re-channel those funds into public school art programs.

  • He has fought to return decision-making powers in education to the states and local school districts.

  • He supports more choice, and less federal dictate, in healthcare, and has proposed major Medicare reform.
... yet I don't know that he's ever told us that he has a 'new vision for America'.

... which is why Congressman Hunter hasn’t a prayer of occupying the White House, and why he must resort to impromptu visits to Mickey Mouse ‘news analysis’ programs to attempt to get his message across.

It’s a sad, and terribly ominous, day in America.

~ joanie

1/06/2008

We Are a Leader in the Free World

Free World 3.jpg

Listening to Mr. Huckabee bashing our country, on the basis of an impression he has that we have been pushing people around, sounded so much like the left-wing attackers who hate America first, and some (unfortunately for the GOP) "RINO's" who hate conservatives first, that I felt a strong desire to set the matter straight.

I am not a guy who goes around screaming, We're number ONE! … not in their face, or anybody else’s.

I make that clear on my First_Salute profile page at FreeRepublic.com:

    If you are from any country and you want to be an American, it is very likely that some parts of you are already an American, and that is why you came here, legally.

    Welcome. Learn about the worthy foundations of our liberty, and why we are free. As you do, you will realize that all around the world there are varying degrees of Americans -- freedom fighters, who struggle in their homelands to make their governments responsive to the rule of law; and you will discover that it takes great courage to risk your personal security in order to hold onto your, and our, sovereignty of the people.

    We are not the leaders nor the rulers of the world; nor do we have the power to decide who is, and who is not, relevant.

    Yet you might say that we are leaders in the free world.

    We are here to set a good example; we are generous; we are loving; we believe in a system of government over which the people rule lawfully, and upon which people can bank on a future for themselves and their families and communities.

    We are noble because we are humble, yet there is much power in our self-determination to do the right thing.

    We live in a harsh world, from which we have carved, and in which we maintain, a just life, so that we may live better than animals; and I mean much, much better, versus existing as slaves in a "politically correct" police state.

    We do not live well because there is "law and order."

    We live well because we believe in the rule of law and due process, versus rulers' laws and arbitrary process.

    That sums up our worthy American Heritage. Every day we use our sovereignty, through our democratic-republican sense of governance -- our Constitution-based democratic-republican structures of government -- to work at maintaining these foundations. This has proven to be the best formula upon which the sovereignty of the people, our prosperity and peace, have all been able to endure and live. It is the formula upon which we have been able to engage in "the pursuit of happiness."

    It's what's missing elsewhere around the world, where people are not happy; yet they must fight to obtain that formula, and to know its value well enough to continue their public's education in its lessons and promises.
There is nothing in there that makes us lord over somebody else; if anything, it is an invitation to be free by practicing the “required maintenance” of freedom, by establishing that the peoples' sovereignty (in our case, under a loving God), is the authority under which gov't and gov't agents reside, at the pleasure of our people, expressed thru our duly-elected representatives.

It is the message that we ought to teach people, so that they can be free and get their systems of common law under their control and out from under the control of their miserable, dictatorial-party "leaders" who continue to make the "court" decisions for such people -- while all public mirages of justice in such dark corners of the world are sanctioned and championed by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other [il]literati.

You cannot be free until justice is aware that it risks losing its head if it fails to abide by the laws established by the people thru the democratic-republican process.

Incredibly, because of enough Americans' upbringing and awareness of this fact, that fact has rubbed off overseas, as we have mucked about in various adventures, and so, over time, some people "over there" get it; they get what liberty means.

It is not easy for that to sink in with people who are unfamiliar with how much they are responsible for their freedom. Yet some do "get it."

They look back at us, thinking that we are practicing these fine principles ... but all too often A DEAL MAKER in the form of, for example, the current crop in the Personality Contest for President of the United States, visits upon such foreign peoples:

A DEAL.

... that fattens the nest of the "private equity" dictators(s) "over there" who make all kinds of Jesse Jacksonian appearances about being "... with you, the people!" While unleashing their enforcers ... against the people who have envisioned an American dream of freedom.

Our well-heeled "experts" on "capitalism" have made THE DEALS regardless, in the interest of their own fat[uitious]-ness ... while at dinner parties and chic gatherings of limousine liberals, giving all indications of having great feelings for the people "over there" who have been left to wonder how they can be free.

The answer lies not in DEALS, but in the aforementioned “required maintenance” of freedom. That is the answer in a nutshell.

That is what we needed/need to reach out with and plant "over there," so that people can establish liberty and justice for all --

"OVER THERE"

Or, if they come here, they may join the maintenance crew for our liberty.

Nothing in this is about asserting the superiority of an arrogant, smug, bombastic "ugly American" (created by the "liberal media") over anybody.

The "pretty," hair-primped, 30-second sound-bit, White House Beauty Contestants might get that, but the only reference you hear is one word:

"democracy"

... in the midst, maybe, of some sound bite.

Unexplained, it becomes, how "over there," it is defined by the wretched results of

A DEAL

... gone bad for the common man, all too often, and about which we do not hear much from the "liberal media" --- the dictatorship of the American media that shapes and carves out the tiny portions of the news that are designed to get Americans to react in favor of spending more time listening in angst to the same "liberal media" and hitting the PANIC BUTTON connected to the Democrat Party Headquarters (DNC) phones.

When some good information, not meaning good news, but actual information about what is happening, works wonders if only the people get it.

Here, and "over there."

In our gov't, and in some places of American business, there are incredibly good people who are doing all the water carrying on the matter of making good, the reaching out to people "over there," who need it.

I have no doubt that our military successes are so much the part of good people doing well, despite whatever politically-correct nonsense emanates from The White House, from The Pentagon Lawyers, from the [Fifth E]State Department, and so many well-fed pork troughs. Even our State Dept. is under the control of foreign powers, with the sole exception, in memory of that wonderful moment of time, when Secretary of State, George Schultz, managed to somewhat run things from the helm, God Bless him!

Helping people, I am happy to do. I reach out all the time, to help and to nudge people.

I have, to you friends, when you really did not need my help, but you have gotten some little improvement in your lives, because I have done what a typical, good person in America does, as an American, helping his neighbor.

I have done so, because your happiness helps to make me happy.

My interests with foreign peoples, are the same – to explain, as simply as possible, the tools necessary to make freedom work, and how to use them. Then leave those tools on the table, awaiting a hand to put them to use.

I am merely the extension of our worthy foundations, of the freedom maintenance crew. And I am grateful for all the training for that, which I received from my great parents and some friends, and my incredible fortune to have learned something on the difficult road to reading and writing about it. I want to say to the people of the world: “Before you, these are the tools that will set you free, and keep you free, if you practice using them, and you know how to forge them, and you know how to train others to continue to do the same.”

Our Constitution is a peace treaty, and we have been given a great trust to maintain it, from all who fought and struggled for our liberty. With our Constitution was included a maintenance contract -- our duty.

That is why I have also said at my profile page at FR:

    We only have the rights we defend, as long as we are able. We are only as free as we make the effort to know why.
Reach out, pick up a tool by which you maintain liberty, every day.

This approach to liberty and its maintenance, upon which we have the freedom to engage in trade, is what I call, capitalism, 90 percent foundation and 10 percent enterprise operating upon that foundation.

Our foundation is what distinguishes our capital way of life from the faux-"captitalism" among the "emerging markets" that are actually politically-state-owned labor pools, and thus not capitalism, but rather, production that has been managed to get caught up in a market upswing ... just wait till that crashes "over there," and you will see how Red China views labor pools as Arabs view oil. State control is their cure.

Our foundation, something upon which our continued upkeep and protection of, provides for us a reserve in tough times, is what you and I point to --- that it is in need of repairs and upkeep, but that is ignored by the personality contestants now in our politics, in our gov't, and in "corporate America" ... who take our foundations for granted.

You and I are focused on 100 percent of the matter, and we write often about 90 percent of the problem, because our foundations are being ignored by the 10 Percenters who are entirely focused on the money, while practicing lip service to the freedom inherent in declaring its value and respect.

Including George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, who cannot stand to say, "our country," and would rather quote from a Washington Beltway thinktank "white paper," with these words, in reference to our country, that he vaguely refers to as "the homeland."

To quote Ronald Reagan, "Well ..." it is not some "the homeland" in some paragraph of some traveling studies show that toured around inside the Beltway.

This is our country.

Ronald Reagan was both great and won our hearts, because he knew that, and he spent time traveling around our country, reminding us about what was great and good about our country and our worthy American heritage.

Ronald Reagan understood, in-reach, that is something the Personality Contestants in this years White House run, do not get.

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