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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

11/09/2008

Tilting at Windmills

Don Quixote.jpg

Many of my patriot friends – both local friends and internet friends – are ceremoniously voicing the opinion that we must rally the troops, re-focus on our conservative roots, and keep our eyes on the 2010 and 2012 elections. They believe that, if we but re-group and try harder to educate the electorate, we can wrest power from the neo-Marxists who will soon occupy the White House and constitute a near-filibuster-proof majority in congress. Others appear intent on repeating the mantra, ‘The Lord will see us through this trial.'

One of the most accurate definitions of insanity is the belief that consistent repetition of the same behavior will someday result in a different outcome.

And the Lord does not promise earthly victory for all who believe. Quite the contrary, Christians have been warned that they will be persecuted. Many a civilization that has turned away from His teaching has fallen, with believers in tow.

There comes a time when the rational mind must acknowledge when a certain point of no return has been exceeded. When continuing to expend one’s energies on a lost cause amounts to nothing more than tilting at windmills. At that pivotal ... and often indescribably tragic ... point in time, the wisest course of action amounts to simply walking away from the battle and turning one’s attention to more realistic pursuits.

I believe we are sitting at such a painfully historical point. We can turn back and keep plugging away at failed endeavors, oblivious to the fact that fewer and fewer are listening to our warnings. Or we can move forward, conserve our energy, and embrace more realistic pursuits, all of which have enormous merit, and require much dedication, time and effort:

    (1) looking out for our families, friends, and neighbors by educating them about the dangers that lie ahead, developing tools with which to confront those dangers, and securing a means of defense against the violation of our God-given rights

    (2) working within our individual communities, as time and opportunities permit, to inform and educate others about the nature of those essential liberties that were incorporated into the foundations of our republic, and the requirement that the citizenry be informed and vigilant if we are to retain, or reclaim, them

    (3) seeking the Lord’s guidance, and relying on the power of prayer
Resigning oneself to the above does not constitute an admission of defeat. It abides by the admonition of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.

Amen.

I have been attempting to compose an essay which would include a recitation of all of the wicked forces that I believe have led us to this watershed point in the history of our beloved republic. Yet each time I sat down to write I somehow did not feel that I could yet do the subject justice.

Providentially, the following essay was posted at Plumb Bob Blog, the day after the 2008 presidential election. (Thank you, John Cooper, for the steer there.) With a patriot’s heart, a reflection of Christ's love, and 20/20 vision, the author accurately portrays, far better than I could ever hope to do, the state of our beloved republic, the reasons for its decline, and our prospects of reclamation. I humbly defer to his incomparable insight and eloquence:

-- They Have Buried Us --

Kruschev.jpg

When I was small, Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union from 1953 - 1964, was famously quoted as declaring to the Free West, “We will bury you.” It was taken as a grave threat in those days. I remember it being played in a commercial on TV. As a young liberal, I was fond of pointing out that Khrushchev was simply talking about the natural outcome of history from the Marxist viewpoint; he explained later, “Of course we will not bury you with a shovel; your own working class will bury you.” It never occurred to me that this was hardly less threatening, especially given the fact that our own working class was getting help from the Soviet Union’s political operative class. I suppose it’s not surprising that the actual work of burying the US was accomplished, not by the working class, but by the intellectuals; this is common for Marxism, which has appeal only to those who are pathologically detached from society.

Last night, the American people elected the equivalent of Hugo Chavez to be President of the United States. He lied about what he stood for, but he was permitted to do so by the press, which is supposed to protect us from such attacks. Even so, his lies were transparent to those of us possessing enough education and independence to do our homework; but there were too few of us, and too far removed from the centers of power.

And so, just over 50 years after Khrushchev uttered his threat, the American voting population announced to the world that we no longer believe in the capitalism that produced more creativity, energy, courage, and wealth than the world thought possible, that we’re going to join the ranks of World Socialism, that we’re going to hand our productive power to the government we once properly distrusted, that we prefer craven dependence to stalwart independence. As we turn the responsibility for our destinies over to Mommy Government, the world’s last, stubborn foil to the tyrannical advance of Marxist domination has just been removed. “Social justice,” the crippling of the effective to satisfy the envy of the ineffective, will commence at a greater pace, and be given the force of arms. The world is in for a very dark time, full of poverty, oppression, and violence.

We allowed it by permitting leftists to infiltrate and distort education, entertainment, law, and news. For at least 80 years, the children of those influenced by their thinking have targeted these arenas, creating protected enclaves into which they refuse to permit any competing ideas. Their control of these areas is nearly complete, and friends of liberty are forming no coherent strategy to break their hold, only the occasional foray into the Dark World. Home schooling chips away at the edges, alternative media permit chatter under the radar, but the centers of control remain in leftist hands, and they don’t believe in fair play or free speech. Expect those holes to be plugged very soon. President Obama (I cringe to type it) and his Democratic minions in Congress will quickly see to it that home schooling is illegal in practice, if not explicitly (probably by requiring teacher certification), that conservative speech is crippled, and that the free exchange of ideas cannot take place without government oversight and intrusion. Be assured that no discussion that has any force that might endanger their domination will be permitted for long.

Oh, and expect to be permitted to worship Christ only so long as it does not impair your cooperation with the Junta’s social agenda. That’s coming soon, too; in fact, it’s been coming for a few decades already, and is now upon us.

Will conservatives get another shot two years from now, in the public’s reaction to two years of Democratic domination? Maybe; probably not. It hardly matters. We have now raised two generations of Americans on a form of public education and a flood of popular film and music that is so thoroughly saturated with statist and world socialist ideals that no general election is going to produce a lasting victory for conservative principles. The masses in America think of capitalism as “greed,” of the robust and free expansion of the economy by individuals as “destroying the planet,” and when they say “we,” they mean “the government.”

The American experiment in self-government is over.

Ultimately, America has not rejected capitalism, it’s rejected Christ. The foundation of liberty is, and has always been, devotion to the living Christ. Liberty entered the world through the ministry of Christ, and is leaving now that we’ve jettisoned Him as our Master. As God told the prophet Samuel when Israel demanded that he appoint them a king like all the other nations had, “They have not rejected you, but they’ve rejected Me from being king over them.” (See I Samuel 8).

Sure, there are Christians among the leftists in America, and a number of them are sincere; but they no longer believe they owe their conscience directly to God, but instead to God through His appointed regents, the State. This is the indirection that America’s founders rejected when they wrote the US Constitution; in their construction, men owed their conscience to God, not to God’s anointed sovereign, the King. It’s no mistake, no accident or coincidence, that America rejected capitalism in favor of a leader who declared with messianic overtones his destiny to rule. In God we no longer trust; instead, we trust in Government. We’ve rejected God from being King over us.

American liberty can be rebuilt, but it must be rebuilt from the ground up. It has to start with the proper education of our children to believe in God, in individual responsibility before God, and in individual achievement as a form of service to God and family. It has to be constructed on a foundation of properly defined morals, and on a world-view that remembers that Man does not serve himself.

I’m not going to retreat from politics; I’m still a citizen of the United States of America, however misguided she may be. My strategy, however, for rebuilding a prosperous, felicitous nation friendly to safe families and appropriate personal achievement is to win converts to Christianity; and not just any Christianity, but a Christianity that encourages sound and sober thinking, that understands man’s place in the universe, that can articulate clearly its purpose for living and its reasons to believe.

We are entering very dark times. America’s economic dominance will end very soon, and her military dominance will not be far behind. Obama plans to make us “good citizens of the world,” meaning that our national choices will become subject to the opinions of tinpot dictators and corrupt, demented representatives from third-world nations. They will plunder us, and we will be stripped bare.

But I know how the story ends, and Christ wins. The rock formed without hands crushes all the mountains, and becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth (Daniel 2). The Son of Man is given dominion, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him, and His dominion is everlasting (Daniel 7). If we proclaim the truth of Christ faithfully, men will experience liberty again. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Spiritual liberty is not unconnected with political liberty; they’re the same thing. One does not exist without the other; and political liberty always results where the Spirit rules.

They have buried us, but we will rise again.

~ joanie

50 comments:

Anonymous said...

This blows my mind and it's all true. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Don Quixote had a lot more smarts than the majority of useful idiots who elected this Marxist.

I agree completely with your three "more realistic pursuits." And they are every bit as worthwhile as trying to unseat the unseatable.

Anonymous said...

A rich democratic society contains within it the source of its own destruction in that because a freemarket democracy gets rich it comes to support ever greater numbers of people who do not have to work to survive. At one end it supports the criminal and the ambitionless class with welfare- bread-and-circuses- who then vote for ever more spending and taxes and elect those at the other end, a horde of intellectuals who do not have to work to feed themselves and who spend their time dreaming up utopias and devising plans and systems to force the rest of us into their utopias. The rest of us cannot counter that because we are too busy supporting ourselves and building the society's wealth. Our concept of Freedom allows us to build that wealth and also allows the Dreamers to implement their dreams to our disaster.

Anonymous said...

"We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped."

--Calvin Coolidge on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Anonymous said...

Your introduction is spot-on Joanie. The poster's essay is spot-on. And so is Cooper's Coolidge quote. I feel like I've bathed in excellence this morning! Thank you! :)

Anonymous said...

Joanie, have you ever taken an active part in a campaign, doing more than just voting?

If you did, you might get a better perspective of what helping to bring about change involves, and maybe you wouldn't be so resigned to defeat.

Anonymous said...

Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

Georgian forces fired rockets at South Ossetia in August.

By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
November 6, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Georgia moved forces toward the border of the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7, at the start of what it called a defensive war with separatists there and with Russian forces.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

Senior Georgian officials contest these accounts, and have urged Western governments to discount them. “That information, I don’t know what it is and how it is confirmed,” said Giga Bokeria, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister. “There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn’t change in any case the general picture of events.”

He added: “Who was counting those explosions? It sounds a bit peculiar.”

The Kremlin has embraced the monitors’ observations, which, according to a written statement from Grigory Karasin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, reflect “the actual course of events prior to Georgia’s aggression.” He added that the accounts “refute” allegations by Tbilisi of bombardments that he called mythical.

The monitors were members of an international team working under the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or O.S.C.E. A multilateral organization with 56 member states, the group has monitored the conflict since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s.

The observations by the monitors, including a Finnish major, a Belarussian airborne captain and a Polish civilian, have been the subject of two confidential briefings to diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, one in August and the other in October. Summaries were shared with The New York Times by people in attendance at both.

Details were then confirmed by three Western diplomats and a Russian, and were not disputed by the O.S.C.E.’s mission in Tbilisi, which was provided with a written summary of the observations.

Mr. Saakashvili, who has compared Russia’s incursion into Georgia to the Nazi annexations in Europe in 1938 and the Soviet suppression of Prague in 1968, faces domestic unease with his leadership and skepticism about his judgment from Western governments.

The brief war was a disaster for Georgia. The attack backfired. Georgia’s army was humiliated as Russian forces overwhelmed its brigades, seized and looted their bases, captured their equipment and roamed the country’s roads at will. Villages that Georgia vowed to save were ransacked and cleared of their populations by irregular Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack forces, and several were burned to the ground.

Massing of Weapons

According to the monitors, an O.S.C.E. patrol at 3 p.m. on Aug. 7 saw large numbers of Georgian artillery and grad rocket launchers massing on roads north of Gori, just south of the enclave.

1 2 3 Next Page »

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

C.J. Chivers reported from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Olesya Vartanyan contributed reporting from Tbilisi, and Matt Siegel from Tskhinvali, Georgia.

Anonymous said...

Their control of these areas is nearly complete, and friends of liberty are forming no coherent strategy to break their hold, only the occasional foray into the Dark World. Home schooling chips away at the edges, alternative media permit chatter under the radar, but the centers of control remain in leftist hands, and they don’t believe in fair play or free speech. Expect those holes to be plugged very soon. President Obama (I cringe to type it) and his Democratic minions in Congress will quickly see to it that home schooling is illegal in practice, if not explicitly (probably by requiring teacher certification), that conservative speech is crippled, and that the free exchange of ideas cannot take place without government oversight and intrusion. Be assured that no discussion that has any force that might endanger their domination will be permitted for long.

Obama, through his chief of staff, has already made it clear that the new president intends to hit the ground running on these issues. He is preparing to issue executive orders, if the congress isn't working fast enough.

Apparently these's no pleasing this tyrant. He got an almost filibuster proof legislative body, but, unless they work as fast as he wants to to turn America into a third world country, he's going to rule over their heads.

He does indeed believe himself a god.

Anonymous said...

truthseeker,

Take your "truth" elsewhere. It flies in the face of real history and it ain't gonna fly here.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone noticed that the markets are tanking on a daily basis since the election even more than they were, on average, before "The One" was elected?

And what has "The One's" response been? An arrogant yawn, and a suggestion that we do more bailouts and stimulous packages.

What was Joanie's definition of "insanity" above?

....the belief that consistent repetition of the same behavior will someday result in a different outcome.

Only Obama doesn't want a different outcome. He wants the markets to tank. He wants our lives to be miserable. Because the more miserable we are, the more we will look to THE STATE for solutions.

Anonymous said...

The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail (UK)
~~~~~
"Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation....

"I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

"...If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

"...From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

"...America [has] finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

"Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

"These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

"...And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?"

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to my site, and welcome. Please note that you've misspelled the name of the blog, the first word of which is spelled "Plumb," with a "b" at the end.

If I may amend your 3-point action plan, I suggest that rather than focusing on what's wrong with the left's agenda, that we begin by focusing on why liberty is essential. My own activism consists in teaching Christian Apologetics as an evangelistic and teaching tools, and in writing my blog, which will focus as much as possible on building a foundation of liberty for the thinking of future generations. As we teach about essential liberty, it will become evident where liberty is being violated; plus, teaching the positive provides a goal toward which we should steer, rather than merely pointing out where somebody else is getting it wrong.

God bless and protect you all as we face a new, less friendly America.

joanie said...

Plumb Bob,

I have considered your 'amendment' to my list of more realistic pursuits. I completely agree with your perspective and have made the change in that entry, indicating that perspective.

Thank you for your input, and, even more, for the content of your weblog. It serves as a breath of fresh air in these troubling times.

~ joanie

joanie said...

John, the Peter Hitchens excerpt is brilliant. I've read more astute observations from across the pond (including those of fellow poster, Luis) that have a firmer grasp on what we have done than most American commentators.

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

We are entering very dark times. America’s economic dominance will end very soon, and her military dominance will not be far behind. Obama plans to make us “good citizens of the world,” meaning that our national choices will become subject to the opinions of tinpot dictators and corrupt, demented representatives from third-world nations. They will plunder us, and we will be stripped bare.

I would have challenged your reality a year or two ago. Now I just sit here nodding in sad agreement.

Anonymous said...

BINGO!

Joanie, once again you've hit the nail on the head.

Refer to Voltaire's Candide. Cultivate your garden. Keep your sidewalks clean.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Cal above, Joanie. There have been times when I have read some of your pessimistic writing about the future of America, and although I almost always agree with what you write I sometimes thought you were being too negative.

I don't think that anymore. Thank you for always writing what is the the truth to you, even though sometimes it isn't popular. 99 times out of 100 you're right. ;)

Anonymous said...

After decades of a dumbed down education system, most Americans don’t know what the defining principles of this country are. They don’t know what socialism is or why we should not want it. They don’t know why an infantilized populace is bad and wouldn’t recognize themselves in the description.

We’ve abdicated control of the education of our own kids. We’ve abdicated control of the news and entertainment media. Lose the schools and universities, lose the news and entertainment media, and you’ve lost the game. Maybe not immediately, but you’re fighting a rear-guard action from that moment forward. Sooner or later an Obama shows up and down you come.

Anonymous said...

In a recent article by Thomas Sowell:

" History fully vindicates the late William F. Buckley's view that he would rather be ruled by people represented by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard."


First_Salute

Anonymous said...

Plan on getting your conservative talk radio by short wave from foreign stations or AM radio stations from Canada and Mexico if Obama pushes the Fairness Doctrine. However, the Fairness Doctrine will not be imposed without a fight both in Congress and the courts. We should already be pressuring our members of Congress and make it clear that that a sell out of the First Amendment will mean active campaigning to get the defeated in the next election. Imagine Obama’s image problem if uncensored news is only available from foreign sources broadcasting over the Obama Curtain.

Anonymous said...

From the Wall Street Journal last week, regarding Argentina's recent seizure of retirement accounts:


That revenues would, at some point, fail to meet the rising expenses of the welfare state was predictable. The only mystery was when the wall would be hit and how the further plunder to make up the difference would be carried out.

On Oct. 21, Mrs. Kirchner ended the suspense by announcing that the nation’s private pension system — with a stock of $30 billion and a flow of $5 billion annually — would become government property. To put that in words that Americans can more clearly comprehend, it would be as if the assets of all 401(k)s were suddenly swept out of owners’ accounts and into a single government account.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122567336191591913.html

Anonymous said...

Here are a few more details about Obama’s plan, which had Joseph Farah scratching his head. First is Obama’s quote.

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

Now, since I’ve never heard anyone inside or out of government use the phrase “civilian national security force” before, I was more than a little curious about what he has in mind.

Is it possible I am the only journalist in America who sought clarification on this campaign promise?

What does it mean?

If we’re going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn’t this rather a big deal?

I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together? . . .

Are we talking about creating a police state here?

The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn’t count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion.

As the opening act for the Domestic Security Force (DSF), let’s not forget that Obama supports banning handguns and wants a federal ban on right-to-carry laws. Then we bring in the Brownshirts, along with the police and prosecutors to be sure folks are telling the truth about Obama, and we are suddenly looking like an unarmed population under the watchful eye of a national security force which does not tolerate dissent.

The Patriot Room

Anonymous said...

Our military have to salute Barack Hussein Obama as their Commander in Chief. That's the worst tragedy of all.

Anonymous said...

After January 20, 2009, there will no longer be a reward for being excellent, thrifty, or successful.

Anonymous said...

After January 20, 2009, there will no longer be a reward for being excellent, thrifty, or successful.

Add personal responsibility to that list.

Anonymous said...

Firearms Industry Addresses Rising Gun Sales; Obama Administration Showing Anti-Gun Cards Early

Anonymous said...

It's an odd coincidence, but creepy anyway: TThe day after the election, the daily pick-three lottery number in Obama's home state of Illinois was "6-6-6."

Anonymous said...

Obama intends to become a dictator as of Jan. 20th. He's making no bones about it. Let's see if anyone has the courage to stand in his way.

Anonymous said...

From another forum:

They [the left] are not listening, because they do not know what America is About.

My family was displaced for Georgia after the last Civil War, and moved to Texas to escape unbearable political corruption during reconstruction.

I will not be re-educated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is why they do not understand:

The only President who had NO connection to the American Experience.

Nothing in his heritage connected to the linking of tradition, respectability, and honesty that the United States has stood for in the world.

He truly has no concept of what we as a people are. He thinks everything is about equal outcome. A concept that never was and never will be.

He hates us for loving freedom and not desiring to be dependent on the state for our happiness. Does that mean that we are free from all restraint? No, only from unnecessary restraint.

He has no concept of honor and dignity. Only his petty ego, and the acquisition of power. But for whom?

He has never built anything. Only criticized those who do not want to do his bidding as being Unfair and Biggoted.

He despises the Dead White Guys who formed our government. And their document the Constitution of the United States. He talks about it being a living document, but if he had his way it would be a dying document.

I have marveled at James Madison’s discourse about the Greek and Roman republics, influenced by the thoughts of Titus Livius and Polybius. You say what possible relevance does that have to this advanced time.

Ironically in the information age there is a paradox. In the face of the most advanced systems of communication in the history of the world, we appear to be less well informed politically and economically than any period in our history. Is it because of the “noise” that surounds the intelligence in the data. Or is it simply that these things are taken “out of context” of our civilization.

We have a press (not a functioning free press as our founders envisioned) that practiced propaganda during the Presidential campaign. What price will they ultimately pay for their part in this?

“To market official truth, so at variance with reality. Or to engineer consent to policies that mock American values. Government must so thoroughly miss-inform the public as to poison the wellspring of Democracy” —Adair—

Several years ago I read how borders no longer are important and that we are in a Global Economy. But those economic transactions have value related to “context” that cannot be calculated in dollars and cents.

It is the very fabric of trust that we live in. Destroy that and we are finished. Our parts must connect as a people. If they do not we will desend into a conflict that may be the path to our end.

We have an Obligation to resist this with our very lives!

And some of US will.................

Anonymous said...

"There comes a time when the rational mind must acknowledge when a certain point of no return has been exceeded. When continuing to expend one’s energies on a lost cause amounts to nothing more than tilting at windmills. At that pivotal ... and often indescribably tragic ... point in time, the wisest course of action amounts to simply walking away from the battle and turning one’s attention to more realistic pursuits."

That's the smartest thing I've heard in months.

Anonymous said...

Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into the shameful pain of submission. He had no right to condemn anyone - he thought - to denounce anything, to fight and die joyously, claiming the sanctity of virtue. The broken promises, the unconfessed desires, the betrayal, the deceit, the lies, the fraud - he was guilty of them all. What form of corruption could he scorn? Degrees do not matter, he thought; one does not bargain about inches of evil.

Atlas Shrugged--p. 303

We're all guilty of LETTING them do this to us.

Anonymous said...

The Democrats' One-Two Punch, Bringing America to Her Knees

Anonymous said...

Joanie,

What do you think about this proposed bailout of the Big 3?

Anonymous said...

What do you think about this proposed bailout of the Big 3?

Joanie, do you allow swearing on this board?

joanie said...

What do you think about this proposed bailout of the Big 3?

Dave, I think it’s an outrage, as are all of these ‘bailout’ proposals.

The Big Three made their beds by producing an inferior product that wasn’t in demand, and – even more egregious – by consistently giving in to the demands of the UAW. And the UAW (read: payback) is a large part of the reason congress is so eager to step in and ‘save’ the auto industry (although I suspect that that particular venture is going to prove to be a lot more difficult than our ‘leadership’ expects).

A related aside:

One of the things that troubles me the most about the increased speed with which we are approaching their socialist ‘utopia’ is that, the more our government takes from the American taxpayer at the point of a gun (and, considering the way they are printing money of late, we’re all going to be working for slave wages sooner rather than later ... as are our children and grandchildren), the less disposable income we will have to contribute to genuine charities (the Salvation Army and the like), whose focus is true altruism.

As a result, people who are really in need, and who would normally be receiving aid from charities, will be going without, while our government is robbing us blind in order to divvy out the proceeds as repayment for political favors, or to realize social engineering goals. The genuinely needy will go without, and the pockets of the politically-correct ‘favored’ will be generously lined.

Those of us who have always valued personal responsibility are going to be hurting badly once the full force of the government’s interference in the free market system begins to be felt (and we haven’t even begun to experience the deep financial and societal ramifications yet). But it is the least among us (as Christ calls those who are in genuine need) ... the unborn, the ill, and the elderly ... who will bear the brunt of the burden.

That is perhaps the most abominable aspect of this ongoing engineered crisis.

~ joanie

Luis said...

Joanie,

These were inspiring words in troubling times. I do agree in the importance of focusing on areas where we can make a difference. If the "majority" want a socialist based state and vote for it, then for as long as we have democracy I guess the rest of us who don't want sccialism are better off focusing our energies on our families and friends.

I am still of the belief that in the long term people will realise the trap that a welfare state can become and vote against it. How long that realisation will take I do not know and how painful the process will be I cannot tell.

I am glad Peter Hitchens article has already been highlighted by another contributor. Peter Hitchens is generally well worth a read. He is not to be confused with his brother Christopher who I would be less inclined to recommend ! Peter and Christopher have been known to appear on the same tv debate in the UK which can make quite a spectacle as they often disagree completely.

I couldn't agree more about the negative effect on genuine charities as the government takes more money for its own favoured causes.

Anonymous said...

The Ruling Clique (mostly lawyers)

In Europe:

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3637


Here, if you want to read up on the problem - find a copy of Raoul Berger's *Government by Judiciary.*



First_Salute

joanie said...

'anonymous':

Thank you for posting the comments written by the immigrant from Georgia. They are very touching.

As is so often the case, those who have come to America from oppressive regimes have much more of an appreciation for liberty than we natural-born Americans.

~ joanie

joanie said...

Luis:

Your comments, as always, are very insightful. I, and all of the readers here, especially appreciate your perspective, since you are already living under a somewhat more stepped-up socialist system than we. Your objective views from the 'outide', being that they are both firsthand as regards your experiences in Britain, and presented from the perspective of one who loves liberty, are much appreciated here!

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

Sure, there are Christians among the leftists in America, and a number of them are sincere; but they no longer believe they owe their conscience directly to God, but instead to God through His appointed regents, the State.

I read somewhere that about 25% of "Christians" voted for Obama. The paragraph above explains why.

Anonymous said...

There's a lot of truth on this site. Truth that most Americans either don't know about or don't care about.

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg:

"The age of free money is at hand..."

- - -

What they do not report, is that when there is so much money around, and GUBMINT is backing all bank debts ... yet money is not being loaned out at "satisfactory" rates/amounts, in the view of GUBMINT and "experts" ...

Then what they are not telling you, is that GUBMINT is the problem.

GUBMINT is so insidious and intrusive in our livelihood, that fewer and fewer people will take risks.

Why should they, when GUBMINT is the source of money?

Having replaced self-determination and personal initiative --- our industriousness.


First_Salute

Anonymous said...

You do good work here.

Anonymous said...

It's over. Stupidity has been the undoing of America. Get ready for the funeral.

Anonymous said...

Democrats Demand Plan from Big 3
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122720155194344635.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

Too funny?

Tantamount to ...

Democrats use regulations and judge-made law to increase the burdens on the U.S. Swim Team, such that the pool in which the swimmers must operate, is near-totally drained, yet the same Democrats demand that the U.S. Swim Team come up with a plan for winning the race.

Because the "world of high finance 'experts' with 'expertise'" are not swimmers, they have been "borrowing the water" from the pool and using it to to float boats, in addition to filling pools, overseas ... away from the burdens imposed by *our* Democrats ... on a theory that:

*Our* swimmers can at
least swim somewhere.

And:

It costs less to fill pools overseas.

Now, of course, you think this is silly, because there is water all around us, and we could easily fill *our* swimming pools!

You'd be right, we could, but GUBMINT regulations prohibit *our* using *our* water to fill *our* pools.

Also, the high financeers, not being swimmers, dont' seem to appreciate swimming.

Yet, it turns out, the people, you and me, *we appreciate swimming.*

For us to maintain ourselves, we practically require swimming --- it's a way of life, self-help, and it promotes our well being.

Still, and "still" is the word to use, here, our GUBMINT, because this is a sensitive issue for so many of our people, we Americans who like to try to win at swimming, that is, our GUBMINT now portrays itself as wanting to lavish us with ... of all things ... our own water ... but under even more regulatory bindings.

There the Congress rants, declaring on TV, that "bad decisions" were made by the U.S. Swim Team.

When all along, the U.S. Swim Team was hopping around from frying pan to frying pan, attempting to keep itself in operation, as *our* Democrats / *our* Congress / *our* "Presidents" ... were draining our pools.

I wish to say to pharoah, *our* Democrats, *our* Congress, *our* Presidents ...

Let my people swim.

First_Salute

Anonymous said...

It was depressing on election day when Obama won, but it gets progressively worse each day now with his appointments of idiots to sit in his cabinet. I guess it will get even worse when they start governing. I'm discovering that there are shades of black.

Anonymous said...

More from Plumb Bob:
~~~~~
"I’ve discovered, after my initial moroseness after the election, that I’m actually relieved that it went the way it did. A McCain presidency would have been four more years of Democrat Lite, and at best would have put a little drag on the nation’s slide into the ditch. With Obama at the helm and the Democrats firmly in control of Congress, the slide will be quick and unmistakable. Yeah, we’ll all suffer — more than we can imagine, I suspect — but history will be enormously clear about what caused the suffering. I hope they’re going to get their filibuster-proof majority, even; if we’re going to see what Progressivism does to the nation, let’s see it full-force. Bring it on, and let’s get it over with."

joanie said...

First_Salute,

That is one of the most stunning analogies I have read in recent memory!

Your wit and creativity, in the face of such national gloom, are incomparable.

Thanks for the (much needed) chuckles, interspersed with nods of sad approval.

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting this excellent eye-opening article. I wish every American and every freedom loving person on earth could read it!

Anonymous said...


Conservatives Need a Back-to-Basics Message
by Bernard Chapin

"The right must not conduct guerrilla war from red state enclaves, but instead return to core principles and groom a leader capable of articulating them. The dichotomy between Republicans and Democrats must be readily evident, and viable alternatives to leftism and statism must be elucidated. To defeat our foes and save our land conservatives need not a reconstitution, but a reiteration of beliefs. Certainly, the obstacles facing our side and America as a whole are quite serious, but educating the electorate about the merits of our ideas is a necessary first step."